


Hold On to What If

by Smash_50



Series: Ultimate Rouge AU [1]
Category: Sonic the Hedgehog (Video Games), Sonic the Hedgehog - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Role Reversal, F/M, Gem Thief Shadow, Gen, Hints of Knuckles having multiple mild crushes, M/M, Multi, Non-Graphic Violence, Self-Indulgent, Shadow swears a lot but not enough for an M rating, Sonic Adventure 2, The Hotwing Adventures of Redge and Bladow, The sonadow is there but it's not the main focus of the story or the characters, Ultimate Lifeform Rouge, referenced character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-13
Updated: 2021-02-02
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:15:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 41,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26437798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Smash_50/pseuds/Smash_50
Summary: Fifty years ago, a scientist was tasked with creating the most powerful being the world had ever seen. He dove into his research, doubling it with his efforts to cure his granddaughter, Maria, from her illness. Before long, his project was completed, but it was deemed too dangerous by the government.Its name? Project Rouge.
Relationships: Amy Rose & Sonic the Hedgehog, Amy Rose/Sonic the Hedgehog (one-sided), Knuckles the Echidna & Sonic the Hedgehog, Miles "Tails" Prower & Sonic the Hedgehog, Rouge the Bat & Shadow the Hedgehog, Rouge the Bat & Sonic the Hedgehog, Shadow the Hedgehog/Sonic the Hedgehog
Series: Ultimate Rouge AU [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1921789
Comments: 135
Kudos: 116





	1. Chapter 1

**_Intruder alert! Intruder alert! Security breach at Gate 3!_ **

The red lights flashed, the sirens blared, the emergency broadcast called for maximum security, but the intruder kept making his way forward, his goal only a few armored doors away. As the emergency message clamored through the static-buzzing speakers, he shot a few rounds of homing missiles from his mech to clear his path from any pesky defense robots he encountered.

The man laughed as every missile hit their target with absolute precision. “That was all too easy,” he boasted aloud, hardly caring if anyone heard or not. Dr. Ivo “Eggman” Robotnik had a flair for the dramatic and enjoyed putting on a show, even if he himself was the only spectator.

Prison Island was a top-notch holding facility, equipped with state of the art technology and the recipient of an extraordinary amount of government funding, with the single purpose to ensure that no one made it in or out… but they never counted on the brilliance of Dr. Eggman and his creations. It really _had_ been too easy for the man to break in and bypass countless security measures with guns blazing, so easy that it might have been boring.

But, luckily, nothing could truly be boring when one was driving a mech and about to uncover one of their family’s greatest secrets.

“Let’s see what my grandfather was working on,” Eggman continued as he drove his mech forward. “A top secret military weapon! The military shut down the research because they feared it!” The thought made his gut clench with excitement, and he leapt forth, deeper into the compound.

Eggman had a deep respect for his grandfather. Gerald Robotnik had made something so powerful, so sinister that the government had to interfere and shut it down, at a high cost in both money and in lives. It was all covered up, as even more money exchanged hands and even more lives were tossed aside, and now, almost no one knew a thing about what had happened fifty years ago. However, Eggman was a persistent man. He knew how to get information and when to get his hands dirty. His grandfather had made  _ the  _ ultimate weapon, and now Eggman would be the one to find it, restore it, and use it.

His fight through the prison was long and tedious; security drones were everywhere, there were multiple doors to slow him down, and the compound was like a labyrinth, with twists and turns, ups and downs, but Eggman was determined to claim his birthright. This was Robotnik family research. This was a _Robotnik_ weapon. It _belonged_ to him, and he would be just as renown as his grandfather in notoriety… or maybe he’d just take over the world entirely. Build his empire as he had always dreamed. His future hinged on his success here in this base, and so he made sure he got to where he needed to go.

As he found himself in front of the Level 7 door, he mentally congratulated himself on overstocking on missiles. It may have made his mech heavier, but at least he could count on blasting his way there and back with no problems.

The armored doors slid open, and Eggman made his way inside with a triumphant little cackle. He moved forward, the mech's large metal feet clanging against the floor, up to a digital console that housed all the answers he was looking for. “So this is the military’s top secret weapon?” he mused, scratching at his head. “It’s a lot smaller than I expected.”

Then again, his grandfather was brilliant. He could probably have found a way to fit a doomsday device into thimble if he wanted to. Eggman observed the console again. What a pity that such genius had to waste away down here, gathering dust because even the military was too afraid to use it. 

Eggman wasn’t afraid, and that was what made him better than the rest. With that in mind, he booted the device up, and was met with a login screen.

“Enter user data… enter password…”

He knew it, of course. It was a short one, a name that had been drilled into his head since he was old enough to think and remember. A name that still, despite his best efforts, left a bad taste in his mouth and a sense of unease in his soul.

“The password is… M-A-R-I-A.” His fingers hit the holo-projected keys as he spelled it aloud, and it was accepted instantly. Red lights shifted to green, and now he just needed to complete the final step. “All I have to do is place this Chaos Emerald into this console.” He took out the treasure, spinning it slowly between his fingers, not quite eager to let go of such a powerful artifact but knowing that it was the only thing with enough power to unlock the weapon waiting for him. The cyan emerald glinted softly as the projected lights refracted off of it, and Eggman shuddered in anticipation as he placed it into the machine, waiting for it to start up and reveal its secrets.

For several agonizing seconds, nothing happened at all, and Eggman wondered if maybe fifty years had left the technology in such a sorry state that it no longer functioned, rendering his whole mission moot. The thought made his blood freeze with fear and then boil with rage.

But then, the lights dimmed, and a pillar rose slowly from the ground up, higher and higher until the doctor’s neck ached from craning it so far back. He let out a chuckle of anticipation, fists clenching so hard that he felt his fingernails start to dig through the fabric of his gloves.

_ What was it? What was it **what was it** what was it going to be? _

He heard the sound of something unlocking, and the hiss of gas as it exited its chamber. A shuffle. A few cracks. Then a figure walked to the edge of the pillar, looking down at him.

Short. Oddly shaped. Definitely not human. Eggman grew frustrated as he realized what this likely meant.

“Who are you? One of Sonic’s friends, here to thwart my plans?”

Instead of replying, the figure jumped off of the pillar, much to his surprise, but large black wings stretched out, allowing them to safely glide downward before black boots touched the ground, and Eggman was staring into a pair of hard, crimson eyes.

Most definitely not one of Sonic’s friends.

“Who are you?” he demanded, and the figure jumped up onto the barrel of his mech’s cannon, crouching to get a better look at him. There was a glint of vague familiarity in those unsettling eyes, but it was quickly replaced by confusion, then anger, then absolutely nothing.

The mobian readjusted herself 一 likely a ‘her’, if those eyelashes were anything to go by 一 so that she was sitting more comfortably. She was a bat, with gleaming white fur that tumbled down to her shoulders, streaked with red, and a tan muzzle that sported a neutral frown. Her eyelids were similarly red, a shade or two darker than her eyes and stripes. She was clad in a simple gray jumpsuit, one that looked familiar, though Eggman was unable to place exactly where he had seen it before. There was an insignia on the left arm, but in that lighting, at that angle, it was impossible to see what it was. White gloves covered her forearms to her fingertips, and a pair of shiny golden rings clamped down over her wrists. Her wings folded back into a more relaxed position as she kicked her feet, swinging them back and forth as she tried to get herself comfortable.

“I am Rouge,” she finally said, surprising him with the frankness of her answer. “Since you were the one to release me from my prison, I suppose that puts me in your service.”

Eggman regarded her, intrigued. “A minion?” he asked, noting the way her ear twitched at the term.

“I would prefer the word ‘aide’ or ‘assistant’, if you don’t mind.”

The request was polite, but the tone was dangerous. That was fine; it was an easy enough request to follow.

“Well then, Rouge, what exactly can you assist me with?”

Her eyes blinked once, but aside from that, her face betrayed no emotion. “Do you need a demonstration of my power?”

As if on cue, a heavy armed combat walker made its way into the room they were in. Eggman’s fingers flew to the controls on his mech, but a hand grabbed his wrist in a grip so painful, the doctor wondered if his bones would snap.

“Leave it to me,” Rouge commanded. “Then you will understand the power I possess.”

She leapt away, soaring through the air toward their attacker, and Eggman sat back, nursing his wrist in his other hand, anger bubbling below his skin at having been handled and bossed around like that.

But as he watched her fight, darting through the air faster than he could keep up with, perhaps as fast as Sonic himself, twisting and turning, dodging and weaving, all until a few high powered kicks left the attacking machine in a smoking heap, his anger faded and turned into amazement.

This… this _had_ to be the weapon his grandfather had created. This bat, whose kicks could break through metal, whose agility was beyond compare, whose speed rivaled that of his greatest enemy…

It was her.

As she turned back to him, he was tempted to clap, if it wasn’t for his aching wrist. Oh well. That one was her own fault.

“Taking down that guard robot was spectacular,” he praised instead. “So  _ you’re _ the military’s top secret weapon?”

Rouge didn’t respond, but she didn’t need to. Eggman had seen enough.

“Very well, I accept your assistance. What can you offer me?”

“Bring me more Chaos Emeralds,” she replied, dashing over his head and plucking the one in the console out of the machine. Eggman moved to grab it from her, too used to pesky mobians running off with the emeralds, but she placed it in his hand without a second glance. “I’ll be waiting for you in the central control room on the space colony ARK.”

“ARK?” he echoed in amazement. There was no doubt about it anymore; Rouge truly was his grandfather’s creation.  


He watched her go, her wings extending, flapping once, twice, before she jumped up and fled the room. He glanced down at the Chaos Emerald in his grasp and grinned, chuckling lowly.

_ How very interesting, indeed... _


	2. Chapter 2

In the desert, two mobians were facing off with a large gemstone in between them.

On one side of the stone was a red echidna, who looked only a few jabs away from a breaking point. Sand flew with the wind, digging through his spines and tickling his nose, but he knew that even the smallest sneeze would be enough of a distraction for the other to run forth and take the gem away. The other mobian, a solid black hedgehog, save for a tuft of white fur at his chest, crossed his arms, smirking at him from across the way, teal eyes glinting with the thrill of the game.

Knuckles the Echidna, guardian of the Master Emerald, was very tired of dealing with Shadow the Hedgehog.

“Oh come on now, Knuckles,” Shadow called over, his honeyed tone giving Knuckles an almost instant headache. “Can’t you let me have it just this once?”

“For the last time, the answer is ‘no’.” Knuckles fought the urge to cross his arms; the second he left himself with even the slightest disadvantage, Shadow would strike. They had done this whole song and dance so many times before that it felt rehearsed at this point. “The emerald is mine. It’s my people’s legacy, and it’s my duty to make sure it never falls into the wrong hands.” As Shadow opened his mouth to reply, Knuckles cut him off. “Like _ yours. _ ”

Shadow sighed, placing one hand on his hip. “Words hurt, you know,” he replied, and Knuckles glared at him. “And after I was doing so well, too! I got this beauty all the way from your little island all the way out here. Don’t you think that’s impressive? Maybe deserving of a reward?”

“You can reward yourself by leaving now and avoiding a fight,” Knuckles replied, stretching out his fingers. “You should know by now that the Master Emerald isn’t just another pretty rock for your collection! It contains special powers that neutralize the energy of the Chaos Emeralds. That makes it very powerful… And not something you can just grab and--”

As though to mock him, a large metal claw descended from the sky, interrupting Knuckles’ explanation and clamping down around the Master Emerald.

“What the…?” Knuckles resisted the urge to groan.  _ Great. Just great. _ A third party after his charge, and even worse, he recognized the machine floating above him.

“Hey!” Shadow shouted indignantly, dropping his relaxed, composed persona in an instant. “Thief! Put that emerald down!”

“Look who’s calling who a thief,” Knuckles muttered, granting him a peeved glare from the hedgehog.

Up above, Eggman glanced down at the large gemstone he had picked up, marveling at its size. “I came here following the signal from the emerald…” he mused, glancing back at the cyan gem, held in place by his tracking device and radar. “...but if I’m not mistaken, this is the Master Emerald.” The doctor scratched his head, frowning. “Something tells me that this wasn’t what Rouge had in mind…”

“Hey! Eggman! Drop that emerald right now!” Shadow bellowed, and Knuckles considered his options. Letting Eggman take the Master Emerald was out of the question; he could take it to any number of bases, under maximum security, and the last thing Knuckles needed was to track down the others and ask for their help. He was sure they would lend a hand regardless, but protecting the Master Emerald was  _ his  _ duty.

That left only one other option.

“Well, I guess I could use it for something,” he heard Eggman mutter up above him, and the echidna lowered to a crouch, prepared to spring upward. “I’ll just take it with me. Farewell, Knucklehead!”

“Not if I can help it!”

With that, Knuckles jumped up, rocketing into the air until the emerald was in reach. Grabbing it would prove impossible, just as he suspected; the surface was too slippery and slanted. Knowing that there was no other choice, and offering a silent apology to Chaos and his ancestors, Knuckles drew back his fist, and slammed it forward.

The emerald shattered on impact, fragments flying far and wide as though they were searching for the ends of the globe, and Knuckles landed on the ground amid a gasp of horror from Shadow and a startled cry from Eggman as his Egg Mobile jostled around from the sudden decrease in weight. The guardian scarcely had time to stand up before furious teal eyes were right in front of him and gloved hands grabbed him by the shoulders, shaking him violently. “What the  **_fuck_ ** was that?!” Shadow screeched. “What the fuck did you do to my emerald?!”

Shaking his head, Knuckles shoved Shadow away, his superior strength removing the hedgehog from his person with ease. “I did that to prevent the Master Emerald from being stolen  _ again, _ you idiot!” he snapped back. “If it’s in pieces, I can restore it!”

“You broke it!” Shadow moaned in frustration. “I can’t believe you would take something so valuable and just… just… Ugh!” The hedgehog gripped at the quills around his head before realizing what he was doing, smoothing them back down as, up above, Eggman made his retreat. “I hate you, Knuckles. I seriously hate you so much.”

“Feeling’s mutual,” Knuckles deadpanned, crossing his arms as his face burned.

Shadow clicked his tongue and tapped his feet, bringing his rocket shoes to life. “Don’t take it too personally,” he taunted, switching back to his teasing, condescending persona without missing a beat. “I hate everyone who keeps jewels from me, and it looks like I’ll just have to find all the missing pieces before you do.”

“Hmph. Good luck putting any of them together.”

“I’ll find a way. I’m the world’s greatest treasure hunter,” Shadow boasted, and Knuckles couldn’t resist the urge to roll his eyes. “Just try to keep up with me. I know speed isn’t your forte, but… maybe you’ll surprise me?”

Before Knuckles could respond, Shadow’s shoes roared to life, and the black hedgehog dashed across the desert sands, leaving nothing but a sonic boom in his wake. Knuckles covered his ears with a grimace until the noise subsided, then relished the brief moment of silence that followed. Ever since his island and his emerald had been discovered, Knuckles could never seem to catch a break, and his job as guardian only seemed to get more and more difficult, but this was his destiny. His duty. He would see it through until the day he died.

He would sort things out with Shadow later. For now, he had some shards to track down.

* * *

Shadow grinned as he smashed the last box and a verdant shard appeared in the wreckage. “And that makes three!” He scooped it up, grimacing at the way his wet glove clung to his hand as he put the shard away. To get to this part of the oasis, he had to ride on the back of a large turtle, and as fun as that was, being wet was hardly a situation he wanted. It made his gloves feel heavy and cold, it made his quills heavy and droopy, it made his shoes function all weird, and his eyeliner…

_ Oh shit his eyeliner! _

The hedgehog scrambled to the edge of the pool, glancing at his reflection and groaning. Yep. He looked like an absolute mess, and the blue eyeliner he painstakingly applied every day 一 _it brought out the color of his eyes, shut up_ 一 was streaking all over the place. With a heavy sigh, he took the opportunity to wash it off; there was no point in reapplying until he was dry. He knew this from experience.

Shadow sat in the sun, toying with his quills and making sure they dried evenly as he wondered what to do next. He loved treasure hunting with all his heart, even if he did look a mess by the end of it all, but this was proving to be a bit of a chore. He had three shards and no idea how many were left, and how many that knucklehead would get to before he did.

And then there was the problem of reassembling the glorious Master Emerald. Shadow paused, taking the shards he had acquired back out and laying them before him.

Yep. No idea how he would even start the restoration process.

Shadow huffed. As pretty as the shards were, they weren’t the real deal. Shadow didn’t want a fraction of the treasure, he wanted the whole thing, in all its glory. He didn’t want to waste his time collecting shards, just to find himself with something subpar for all his effort. Not when there were other treasures out there, also ripe for the taking. Like that high security bank he was staking out and planning to break into. He could hatch that plan any time he wanted, but not if he was running around the world, looking for fragments.

So, the solution was obvious. Shadow had three shards of the Master Emerald. Knuckles could find the rest 一 Shadow could easily count on him to search tirelessly until he did 一 and once he started putting the Master Emerald together, Shadow could swipe it and finish the job himself. He smirked to himself, putting the shards away again. With that squared away, he could focus on that bank.

It wasn’t going to be easy, but when were any of his heists easy? Shadow didn’t make a name for himself by always doing things the easy way. The day he had stolen his precious shoes, the black, blue and white rocket shoes, the ones that could propel him to speeds faster than most could comprehend, his heists had become more and more daring and dangerous, bringing him into tighter and tighter squeezes that he always managed to find a way out of. That kind of adrenaline brought glory, and glory was something that Shadow loved almost as much as gems.

In the whole world, only one person could claim to keep up with him, and the thought of that person made Shadow grin even wider and his eyes flash. If he stole from the bank, chances were that he would bump into  _ him  _ again, especially since he was planning on making away with a Chaos Emerald.

Well then! It seemed as though he had his plans set for this evening.

Shadow stood up and stretched, wiping any excess sand from his fur and kneeling before the water again to reapply his eyeliner. If he was going to be chased by police, camera crews, and with any luck, _him_ as well, he wanted to look his best.

He would have a Chaos Emerald before the day was out, and before long, the Master Emerald as well.

Life was good.

* * *

Night fell over Central City, but it seemed the day was far from over.

Rouge the Bat glided her way up to the highest point of the bridge on the edge of the city, looking down over the buildings and the streets. She saw cars and buses and people, all mingling and rushing as though it was still daytime, though the nightlife had a different feel to it.

Yet, she only felt contempt and bitterness for all those people. For all this _life._

Rouge closed her eyes, and from the foggy confines of her mind, one memory surfaced. It was one of the few she had access to, and her least favorite to revisit, but it was the one she played in her head, over and over until her blood burned and her heart cried out in grief and rage.

_ Flashing red lights. Loud footsteps. The glass locking down around her. Absolute terror. Sad blue eyes peeking out through sweaty blond hair. The pull of a lever. Fists slamming uselessly against her prison. _

_ The ear-splitting  _ **_BANG_ ** _ that made her blood run cold. _

_ MARIA! MARIA! LET ME OUT! LET ME HELP YOU! _

_ Rouge, I beg of you… Please do it for me… For all the people on that planet… _

_ MARIA! PLEASE! PLEASE, I CAN SAVE YOU, JUST LET ME OUT! _

_ Sayonara… big sister… Rouge... _

A burning sensation rose in Rouge’s throat at the memory and she struggled to keep the bile down. It didn’t matter if it was the first or the fiftieth time she brought that memory back… it never got any easier to see. Rouge gripped at her arm, claws threatening to stab through the fabric of her glove and tear into the insignia on her jumpsuit. The night air whistled past her ears, and her eyes opened. Her vision was blurry from building tears, but she blinked them away. There was no time for crying. Not when she still had a promise to fulfill.

“Maria… I still remember what I promised you. For all the people on this planet… I promise you  **_revenge_ ** for what they let happen to you!”

The word tasted bittersweet on her tongue, a mix of gratification and remorse, of right and wrong. Rouge didn’t remember much at all, but she remembered what was important. Any misgivings she might have had were just distractions in the long run. Gut feelings meant nothing next to cold hard facts, and they drowned in the sea of anger that drove her forward. Rouge was deemed a weapon… and it was time to show these people just how powerful she could really be.

Sirens blared from the streets, causing her to tense up as the memory came back, but they were interspersed with a voice yelling from a loudspeaker.

**“This is the Central City Police! You are under arrest for larceny, resisting arrest, and fleeing custody! Turn yourself and the Chaos Emerald in!”**

The bat’s ears perked up.  _ A Chaos Emerald? _ She frowned, picking out the direction of the sirens and spreading her wings. This warranted further investigation.

She would do it. For Maria’s sake, she would gather the emeralds and bring this world to its knees. 

With that in mind, she took off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: Sonic escapes from the city and bumps into Shadow. Shadow almost has a good day.


	3. Chapter 3

High in the sky above Central City, Sonic was annoyed.

The sound of the helicopter’s blades whirling through the air made a speedy rhythm, and the hedgehog tapped his foot in time with it as he frowned at his cuffed hands. This was really getting ridiculous. He knew the military wasn’t his biggest fan 一 and he could just as easily claim the same himself about them 一 but at this point they were looking for _any_ excuse to apprehend him.  He wasn’t even carrying a Chaos Emerald, for pete’s sake! Yet they detained him, bringing him high into the sky because they’d had enough experiences with him to know that if he was kept on the ground, he  _ would  _ escape. 

Again.

Sonic glanced over at the security in front of him. Two guards, one pilot. Easy enough once he got his hands free. After that… well, he would cross that bridge once he got there.

He sighed loudly, groaning in boredom to distract from the sound of the handcuffs getting loosened. Handcuffs were a joke to him at this point, which only went to show how ridiculous this whole thing was. Sonic had been framed too many times to count, and he was sure he knew exactly who was behind the theft he was being taken away for, too. The hedgehog frowned, his mind effortlessly bringing forth the image of sleek black spines… fluffy white fur… smouldering teal eyes… pointed white teeth bared in a smirk…

He shook his head, forcing himself to focus.  _ C’mon, Sonic. He’s not even  _ **_that_ ** _ hot… _

His hands slipped out of the cuffs right as he heard the pilot start making a report over the radio. Time was of the essence now, and his escape couldn’t be stealthy anymore. That was all fine; Sonic wasn’t really one for sneaking around. A spin dash here, a punch there, a kick up above and down below, and before he knew it, he was gripping on to the wing of the helicopter, pulling himself up as the pilot screamed at the incapacitated guards.

Soon enough, all of G.U.N. would be on his tail. He might as well have fun while he was still thinking over his escape route.

“Talk about low-budget flights!” he taunted over the noise. “No food or movies? I’m out of here!”

He was tempted to throw in a threat for a bad online review, but the detached helicopter panel in his hands gave him an idea. A stupid, reckless idea, that would likely get him killed if he had been anyone else. He slid the panel down onto the wing, resting his feet on top of it, taking a deep breath and preparing to jump.

“...I like running, better.”

And with that, his escape began.

* * *

Even as night fell, Sonic kept running. G.U.N. sure could be relentless when they wanted to! Sending out _robots_ to fight him, and all for an emerald he didn’t steal? This was going way too far!

He dusted off his hands as the combat walker fell to the ground, sighing loudly. What he wouldn’t give for a glass of water right about now. And dinner. And some peace and quiet.

“My, my…” a familiar voice purred, and Sonic half-heartedly gave up on any of those happening anytime soon.  He lifted his gaze back to the fallen robot, and sure enough, there  _ he  _ was, standing on the wreckage, tossing the green Chaos Emerald idly into the air and catching it as he smirked down at him.

“You did quite a number on this one,” the black hedgehog continued, tapping the metal shell with his shoe. “I’d be impressed if I didn’t expect as much from you.”

“I could have taken it down faster if I hadn’t been running from the cops all day,” Sonic returned, making his way over to the heap. “You know, Shadow, the more I take the fall for your crimes, the more I start to think this is all a game to you.”

Shadow’s smirk widened to a grin, and he leapt down, walking forward until they were face to face, his eyes focused on the other’s, and Sonic didn’t dare look away. He wasn’t losing another one of their little showdowns. “Oh, but isn’t it fun?” Shadow cooed, his eyes flashing with playful mirth. “I get my jewels, you get to perfect your escape tricks, we both get a little bit of adventure…”

“Until the day they lock me up for good,” Sonic replied, but despite his best efforts, he didn’t sound as annoyed as he wanted to.

“I have faith in you,” Shadow replied simply, twirling the gem in his fingers. His eyes still never left Sonic’s, their pull almost hypnotic. “And even if they put you in the most maximum security cell there is, your friends won’t stop until they’ve busted you out.”

“Unlike yours?” Sonic retorted. Shadow blinked at that, eyes hardening and shifting away, and Sonic, despite winning this round of their little game and his frustration at always being the fall guy, wished he hadn’t said anything. “So a Chaos Emerald, huh?” he said, switching back to a safer topic. “Heard it came from a high security bank vault. How did you pull that one off?”

Just like that, Shadow was back to normal, exuding confidence. “What, was it supposed to be hard?” he teased, one hand resting on his hip while the other held up the gem. Sonic knew better than to try to take it; it was just more evidence against him, in the end. “Are you impressed?”

“A little, yeah,” Sonic admitted, and Shadow fumbled, almost dropping the emerald in his grasp.

“You are?” came the soft, meek whisper, causing Sonic’s ears to perk up in shock, before Shadow got a hold of himself and returned to his usual bravado. “I mean, of course you are! Who wouldn’t be? I’m the world’s greatest treasure hunter!”

Ordinarily, this would be the part where Sonic would dismiss that claim, bantering and teasing and trading insults back and forth until they raced across the city, but Shadow’s earlier reaction peaked Sonic’s curiosity. He tried a different approach.

“You’re right. I can’t think of anyone else who could have pulled it off.”

Shadow blinked, blue lined eyes going wide and his jaw going slack. Sonic felt a surge of exhilaration; he had never seen the other hedgehog so off of his game. He grinned, stepping forward, and to his amazement, Shadow took a step back.

“What’s the matter, Shadow?” he taunted, feeling like he had the upper hand. Shadow, too, seemed to be aware of the current status quo, his eyes shifting around and his teeth darting out to worry at his lip, and Sonic couldn’t help but feel a powerful sense of delight at the sheer degree that he was flustering the other. “Not used to compliments?”

“Yeah right,” Shadow shot back, weak and defensive. “I just… It’s… Are we going to race or not?” he snapped, tapping his shoes to the ground and bringing them to life, looking anywhere but at Sonic. Sonic rolled his eyes, grinning wide at this new knowledge of how to mess with his rival and storing it away in his mind for future use. He knew the time for banter was over… now it was time for their preferred passtime.

Both of them took their starting points, eager to get running, all the way to the bridge as usual, and maybe beyond if they felt so inclined. The air was ripe with their eagerness, the yearning to dash through the streets, to weave past cars and pedestrians until they reached their destination, exhilarated from the thrill of running alongside the only one who could keep up with him…

...but the sound of approaching sirens stopped them before they could begin.

“Shit,” Shadow swore, gripping onto his treasure as Sonic tried to pinpoint the direction the sound was coming from. “Sorry sweetheart, but it looks like I’ve got to get going.”

“Who’re you calling ‘sweetheart’?” Sonic replied dryly, prompting a laugh from his companion.

“Well, I’m not about to call you ‘cellmate’ any time soon.” Shadow paused, appearing to mull something over. “Actually... do you think they would put us in the same cell?”

“No idea, and I’m not about to find out,” Sonic returned.

“You’re right, can’t afford to be caught.” With a dramatic sigh, Shadow turned in the opposite direction from Sonic. “Well then… until next time,  _ sweetheart. _ ”

Sonic could hear the teasing lilt in Shadow’s voice, but before he could so much as open his mouth, he felt the winds pick up around him, and when he turned his head, Shadow was already gone.

“That Shadow,” Sonic said, shaking his head and staring out into the distance after him. “But I’d better get out of here before--”

The words had scarcely left his mouth before a harsh floodlight blinded and stunned him, and when he next opened his eyes, he was surrounded by cars and helicopters.

“Damn it,” Sonic groaned, frustration returning in full. “Not again!”

* * *

On a rooftop, several streets away, Shadow saw the lights flash and heard the faint voice boom through the loudspeaker. He sighed, taking back out his emerald. He didn’t relish the fact that Sonic often 一 okay,  _ always  _ 一 took the fall for his heists whenever he was caught on camera, but that was  _ hardly  _ his fault. It wasn’t his fault that he managed to get caught so often either.  


“Sorry sweetheart,” he murmured to the emerald, as though it would carry his words over. “But it’s better you than me. Your friends will help you out…”

Shadow bit his lip as he recalled Sonic’s words.  _ Unlike yours?  _ The dark hedgehog glared into the distance, because, unlike Sonic, there was no one in the world willing to bust Shadow the Hedgehog out of jail, and that knowledge was still a bitter pill to swallow.

He didn’t understand it, either. Wasn’t he cool? Didn’t he do amazing things? He was charming, good looking, confident… so why wasn’t he liked as he should be? Why was he still as good as invisible to everyone but his rival? Even that stupid treasure hunter Knuckles didn’t bother to acknowledge how great he was, let alone send a kind word his way.

But Sonic had said he was impressed by him… Shadow’s fingers fumbled around the emerald again as his face heated up, and he cursed his pitiful display back on the streets. He had made a complete  _ ass  _ of himself, had let his cool, calm and collected exterior crumble, and for what? A  _ compliment? _ A measly  _ crumb  _ of **_validation?_ **

Shadow sighed, deflating and holding the gem in his hand up to the sky, falling back onto the roof of the house to look at the moon and stars. “At least I still have you,” he murmured to his prize. Gemstones had never failed him before. They were proof, incontestable  _ proof, _ of his capabilities, of his greatness, and they never failed to make him feel better. Gemstones never ran off, never dismissed him, and maybe they would never save him from a prison cell, but at least they would never look beyond the surface. They would never dig too deep and realize that, at the end of the day, Shadow was just a regular hedgehog with a fancy pair of shoes and nothing more.

Shadow’s fingers clutched painfully at the gem, his eyes shutting tight. _Why_ did he have to think like this? He was having such a good day, too… 

Then the emerald disappeared from his grasp, and Shadow was clinging at empty air.

“Wh… **_What the hell?”_**

He sat up, eyes blinking open and looking around wildly, burning with red-hot fury until he found the thief. In the moonlight, it was difficult to make out many features, but thanks to the photographic memory of a master thief, Shadow only ever needed one good look. A bat, fairly tall, long white hair, tacky jumpsuit, gold rings, red stripes and eyes, and a strange insignia on the left arm. Satisfied with his observations, Shadow leapt to his feet, rocketing forth to take back his prize, but with a simple murmur of ‘Chaos Control’, the bat disappeared and reappeared behind him, knocking him to the ground.

“Ugh!” Shadow spat, ridding his mouth of the dirt he had inhaled, recovering quickly to sweep a leg at the thief’s feet, but she jumped elegantly into the air, her wings extending, overshadowing the moon behind her. Shadow scrambled to his feet, fueled by anger as he jumped into the air, gaining some extra height with a boost from his shoes, but the stranger swooped down to meet him halfway, a slender arm that was somehow more solid than steel burying itself into his midsection and knocking the winds out of him as she brought him crashing back down to the rooftop.

Shadow squirmed, desperately trying to put air back into his lungs and clawing in the air in a futile attempt to get his emerald back, and the bat hesitated, looking down at him with a look that could only be pitying, and Shadow hated, _hated,_ ** _hated_** it.

The stranger knelt down, grabbing his reaching hand with a vice-like grip that Shadow was unable to shake, and stayed by him until he finally let in a gasp and air flowed into his lungs once more. The sound of his hyperventilating and the blood pounding in his ears almost drowned out her final words to him.

“Stay out of this. This is bigger than you understand, and you have no idea what you’re dealing with.”

Shadow was still struggling to catch his breath as she stood up, and with one more chant of ‘Chaos Control!’ the thief was gone without a trace.

_**Shadow was pissed off.** _

He got back up to his feet, shaking from the fight and from the pure, unfiltered rage coursing through him. How dare she? How dare she come up to him, knock him down, and take his spoils? The emerald he had worked so hard to obtain, gone just like that. The one good thing that had come out of today, snatched up by some condescending bat with the worst fashion sense Shadow had ever seen.

_He_ had no idea what he was dealing with?! _She_ had no idea what _she_ was dealing with! He was _Shadow the Hedgehog,_ and he wouldn’t take this insult lying down.

He closed his eyes, recalling the insignia he had seen on the arm of her jumpsuit. That was the key to tracking her down. All he had to do was trace the origin and he would find her or her organization. He would keep looking, fueled by spite and fury, until he tracked her down and she paid in full for what she did to him. That bat had better prepare herself for the coming storm...

  
Because he was Shadow the Hedgehog, and he hated  _ anyone  _ who took jewels from him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: Shadow's research gives him a lead, and Eggman prepares to visit the ARK.


	4. Chapter 4

Shadow grimaced, crumpling up another failed artist’s rendition of the insignia he saw and tossing the paper away before trying to draw it again, slower this time. He closed his eyes, effortlessly bringing back the image he had seen; that was the great thing about a photographic memory.

Unfortunately, he lacked the artistic skills to replicate what he needed to research.

He huffed as his hand wavered, making the outer curve of the odd shape too small compared to the inner one, and felt just about ready to toss his pen across the room and throw in a scream for good measure. But he needed to do this. He needed the image out of his brain and onto paper. Then his hunt could begin.

As he tried once more, hand moving at a snail’s pace, he let his annoyance simmer into anger, gritting his teeth as he remembered why he was subjecting himself to this nonsense. He could still feel it, the solid _whack_ to his gut as her arm slammed into his midsection, the gem swimming before his eyes, just out of reach, clasped in the fingers of that thief with the disgusting, pitying look in her eyes… Staring at him as though he were some child… Something  _ useless _ ...

He pressed his pen down so harshly that he almost ripped a hole in the paper. Bile rose in his throat, hot and bitter, and the surge of spite that rushed through him like a flash of electricity drove him to finish his drawing.

A weird, red crescent type of thing. Spiral in the inner curve. Weird spikes on the outside.

Close enough. He could work with this.

Shadow brought his rendition over to his scanner and uploaded it onto his computer, sitting back in his chair as he started the search and compare program that had taken him years to perfect. With how thorough it was, it wasn’t exactly legal, but then again, most of the things in his room weren’t exactly legally obtained. At most, he was on a few watchlists, but that didn’t matter to him. Technology was easy to wipe, and a cinch to replace if you didn’t plan on paying for it.

He did what he had to do. This was how he learned to live on his own.

Given the amateur likeness he had provided, it took a while for his comparison program to find a match, and those that it did find were, more often than not, barely even close to the original, but Shadow sipped at his energy drink, sifting through the occasional result and waiting patiently as his anger stewed and reminded him why he was doing this in the first place. 

He would find what he was looking for eventually. He always did.

And there it was, small and blurry in a black and white photograph, tucked between near-miss matches for a cereal brand logo and a coiled rope of red licorice. Shadow clicked on the photograph, eyes narrowing as he was redirected to an article about some kind of government shutdown of a project. His eyes skimmed the page, occasionally glancing back up at the photograph to make sure he was looking at the right symbol, but there was no mistaking it. That symbol had to do with this project.

He started to scroll down, ready to read in earnest, when the website froze and kicked him from the page. Shadow groaned; this was also nothing new. He had found himself banned from most government-operated websites and news sources with his research. Just in case, he tried going back to the page, but sure enough, the photo he had found had been removed from his program’s search results and retyping what he could remember of the web address just led to nothing.

Shadow sunk back into his chair, closing his eyes and revisiting what he had seen as he skimmed the article. He hadn’t gotten the name of the project, oddly enough, but he had seen one name that could prove to be a lead.

_ Robotnik. _

Innocent enough to look up, right? Shadow typed it into the search bar and hit Enter.

His eyes grew wide, and a grin spread across his face in tandem.

He knew what he was going to do next.

* * *

Eggman hovered across the desert on his mech, grumbling in frustration. After the mess that was his attempt at securing the Master Emerald, his efforts at finding another Chaos Emerald for Rouge had proven futile, but he wasn’t about to let that drive him into a corner. The way he saw it was that he had every right to be suspicious of the bat, and if she was a reasonable being, she would understand his stance. He had one emerald to offer her; if she was unable to prove to him that she needed the rest  _ and  _ required his help, then he would not bother with her.

That would be what he said to her face, anyhow. He wasn’t quite so eager to let his grandfather’s greatest creation out of his sights, but she didn’t know him. She wouldn’t make that kind of gamble if she was a creature of logic, and even if she did, Eggman was confident in his ability to make a device able to capture her.

He kept his course steady toward his pyramid base, unaware of the black blur that tailed him.

* * *

Shadow watched the mech enter the pyramid, frowning as the door closed behind the doctor. He clicked his tongue, inspecting the base all around, but there was no back door or secret passageway inside.

“Well then,” he sighed, stretching out his arms. “Looks like I’ve got some keys to track down before I get in there…”

* * *

Eggman strode into the transporter room in his base, deep in thought. “A Chaos Emerald...” he mused, making his way toward the large holographic monitor. “...in the space colony ARK. Hmm... I’ve got to find out just what’s going on up there.”

Rouge’s plan intrigued him, but not if it came at a price he couldn’t afford. He needed answers more than results right then.

He tapped a few keys on the display, and the monitor booted up, immediately showing a news segment from the night before. Eggman crossed his arms, wondering what dastardly events had been going on while he was plotting his own schemes.

_ We interrupt this broadcast for an important news flash. There was a break-in at the federal reserve bank last night. Mysteriously, the only thing that was stolen was the Chaos Emerald. _

Eggman slammed his hands onto the console in shock. “The Chaos Emerald?!” Could it only be coincidence? Or was it Rouge's doing?  


The footage from the night before began to play, grainy and poorly-lit, but there was an unmistakable speedy blur dashing away from the bank, glowing gem in his grasp. Eggman squinted at the figure as the reporter droned on.

_ According to eyewitnesses at the scene, the suspect was identified as the world-renowned hero, Sonic the Hedgehog. The suspect was seen fleeing the scene-- _

“Sounds more like the work of Shadow,” Eggman remarked, tuning the rest of the broadcast out. The footage of the suspect had been barely passable as evidence, but Eggman could see that it hadn’t been Sonic legging it from the bank. The two looked similar, certainly, and both ran at incredible speeds, but there were some obvious differences that could be picked up even in low-lighting and bad quality camerawork.  The hedgehog who had run off with the emerald had his spines upturned rather than falling flat, and there had been a small dash of white at his chest rather than a large peach patch across the stomach. The darkness had made it impossible to tell if the suspect’s quills were black or blue, but the arms were covered in dark hair rather than the pale fuzz that Sonic’s had.

Eggman had seen Shadow the Hedgehog only the day before, too. There was no mistaking who the thief was, and it made him laugh.

“So Sonic’s found himself paying for your crimes again,” he chuckled, twiddling his moustache as he switched away from the news bulletin. “At least that’ll keep him out of my hair for a while!”

His grin stayed strong as he typed in the commands to power up the transporter. He was on the cusp of something incredible, and it seemed fortune was in his favor.

* * *

Shadow heaved a sigh. Finally, after running, climbing, digging and fighting his way around and through the base, he had found his way into the inner rooms. He tried to take his time, searching around for any hidden treasure, but all he found was more robots to dodge and push into walls, a nd still no sign of the doctor himself.  Shadow darted through the base, his impatience growing, until he happened across a brand new door. He pushed his way inside and his eyes lit up at the sight that greeted him.

“It’s a space transporter!” he gasped, running forward to confirm his hypothesis and clapping his hands together with glee as he realized that he was entirely right. He had only heard of these before, but to see one in real life! It was so cool! His eyes, still gleaming with delight, lifted to the monitor. “And the destination has been sent to… ARK?”

_ ARK? ARK… _

_ Oh! ARK! Just like…! _

He closed his eyes, bringing back the image of the article, skimming back over the words he had bothered to pick up on his first glance, and there it was.

_ Space colony ARK. _

It was all coming together now. Shadow’s smile widened as he typed in a repeat command and stepped on the transportation pad, shifting his feet impatiently as it powered up.  


Whoever that bat was, she was working with Eggman to some degree, and the doctor had led Shadow right to her! The emerald was as good as right back in his hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: Shadow photobombs the Top Secret Villain Meeting and inserts himself into the grand scheme of things.


	5. Chapter 5

“So this is the Space Colony ARK,” Eggman mused as his transportation was deemed complete. He looked around at the dark, decrepit, old metal shell, holding obsolete but operational technology that was just as dangerous as any other. The doctor may have been able to build better on his own, but he was no fool. The ARK had been the home for many top secret projects and housed some of the greatest minds ever seen, his grandfather included.

In the back of his mind, the name ‘Maria’ popped up, but he pushed it away with a near-imperceptible shudder. There was no time to consider that.

It was time to go find Rouge.

“I have to locate the central control room she mentioned before she left,” he muttered, refreshing himself on his objective. He rolled his neck, stretched out his arms, and let out a breath before moving forth, opening doors and destroying security systems as he passed on by.

* * *

In the central control room, Rouge waited by the main computer, rolling the green Chaos Emerald around in her hand. She felt a prickle at the back of her neck and sucked in a breath. Ivo had arrived; she could sense the energy emanating from his Chaos Emerald. She closed her eyes and concentrated, blocking out the energy signature from the gem in her hand, but it seemed as though he had only brought the one emerald with him. Rouge frowned, reopening her crimson eyes. She had expected more from the professor’s descendant, but perhaps this was but another move in the game of chess they were playing.

Fine. If that was how he wanted to play it, then she would go along with it. If it meant achieving her goal, to avenge Maria… she would do whatever that man said. She would listen to his excuses and accept his apologies. Whatever it took to get the emeralds to the ARK.

She stood in wait, feeling the energy signature grow stronger and stronger, until the sound of the door sliding open let her know that it was time to give her speech.

“I’ve been waiting for you, doctor,” she stated, turning around to face him as he leapt out of his mech. “So you’ve settled on just one emerald to give to me?”

“Until I know what they’re going to be used for, I don’t see why giving them to you will benefit me,” Ivo responded. Rouge fought the urge to glare; she knew that this was not the time to be making an enemy of this man, no matter how annoying this setback was. As it stood, working with him would give her the best chances of following through with her plan; it would take a Robotnik to figure out all the technology on this spacecraft.

Rouge was many things. A savant of every machine and piece of equipment on the ARK was not one of them. Like it or not, she needed his know-how for her plan to succeed.

“I suppose that’s fair,” she lied evenly, turning her head back to the computer behind her. “In that case, I will show you the glorious achievement of what the world’s leading scientist, Professor Gerald has created.”

_ Had, _ her brain corrected, and the thought sent a stab of pain through her chest. She selected the program she was to use, masking her recovery from her grief with flashing lights and the sound of engines beginning to whir.

“The ARK was the first space colony created by mankind,” she explained, fighting to keep her voice even. “Not many know that the ARK contained a top secret research facility where weapons of mass destruction were being created.” She tapped the console, steeling herself for whatever questions might come next. “This is one of them. A weapon capable of destroying an entire planet…”

_ And every last worthless, miserable excuse for a human being on it. _

“...code-named, the Eclipse Cannon.”

She was prepared for surprise, for skepticism, for the inevitable questions of ‘why would you help me’ and ‘how does this benefit you’, but Ivo only looked… intrigued?

“Destroying an entire planet…” he echoed in wonder, eyes roaming over the console and across the projected screens. “Was this my grandfather’s legacy?”

Grandfather. The word almost sent Rouge’s head spinning, and a voice, soft and sweet and clear, repeated it in her memories.  _ Grandfather! Grandfather! _

_ Stop it, Rouge. You’re doing this for her. _

“But it’s been deactivated for some time, now,” she barrelled on, taking out the green Chaos Emerald once more. Without a second of hesitation, she jammed it into one of the seven slots on the machine, and the engines started to hum, the lights flashed more brightly and quickly, and the room seemed to come to life for a few seconds before dimming again. “To reactivate it, large amounts of energy are necessary,” she explained, turning back to the doctor.

“Oh… So that’s why we needed the Chaos Emeralds!” Ivo realized, and Rouge resisted the urge to smirk in triumph. She had him now. She just needed to deliver the final blow.

“Exactly! To reactivate the machine, we  _ need  _ the seven Chaos Emeralds. Once you have that, then you will have the ultimate power of destruction to use as you please. And then… the world could be yours!”

Ivo cackled at that, hands resting on his middle. “Sounds like a plan,” he agreed, and this time, Rouge didn’t hold back her triumphant grin. “I like the way you think, Rouge! I will get the Chaos Emeralds, use the machine to dominate the world, and build a legacy of my own!”

“Oh come on, do you _really_ think it’ll be that easy?”

Both bat and human whipped their heads around. That was a new voice. Rouge hadn’t heard them come in, but now that she was focused, her ear picked up the soft clang of shoes on metal approaching them.

Then, to her surprise, the black hedgehog from the night before sauntered forth, glaring daggers at her before turning to the doctor, his voice turning saccharine. “I mean, I  _ suppose  _ it would be, if either of you had any idea of where to look for the rest of the emeralds.”

“How did you get here?” Rouge asked, eyes narrowing in suspicion. This hedgehog had found his way back to her, somehow. He couldn’t have taken a shuttle into space; how could he have known that she was in orbit? And he lacked a Chaos Energy signature, so it couldn’t be Chaos Control, so how…?

“Was it supposed to be hard?” he taunted back, hand coming to rest on his hip. “As much as I’d love to tell you how easy it was to track you down, I couldn’t help but hear about this whole business about the emeralds, sooooooo…” He looked back at Ivo with a grin. “How about we make a deal?”

“A deal?” The doctor sounded intrigued, and despite her better judgement, Rouge was just as interested to hear what he had to say. In any case, if he proved useless, she could easily take him out again and make sure he never returned.

“Oh, it’s pretty simple,” the hedgehog drawled, smoothing back his quills. “You have one emerald, she has another. I might not have one on me anymore…” He punctuated that statement with another glare in Rouge’s direction, and despite herself, Rouge felt a flare of satisfaction at his annoyance. “...but I know where four more are being kept. As for the last one, that’s still a work in progress, but I think I could make that little radar of yours work some magic with the help of one of these.”

With that, the hedgehog pulled out a large green shard and pointed it toward the mech. As he did so, Rouge felt the power in the cyan emerald spike, and the doctor’s radar started letting out loud pinging noises. “I’ve been told by a certain knucklehead I know that the Master Emerald causes a reaction in the Chaos Emeralds,” he explained, tucking away the shard, arrogance seeping into his tone. “Mostly to neutralize their power, but as you can see, there’s a bit more to it than just that. With its help, tracking that last emerald down will be a walk in the park.”

“And what’s in it for you?” Ivo asked, and though Rouge had been expecting to hear that question sometime today, she definitely hadn’t expected it under these circumstances.

“Simple. I want to have the radar for keeps once you have all the emeralds.” The hedgehog pursed his lips, mulling it over for a moment. “And I want to be considered a part of this plan. That means being up _here_ when you start to point the big guns at the planet!”

Ivo cackled once again. “A replaceable piece of equipment and a bit of security? Now that’s another plan I can get behind!”

“And how do we know he’s telling the truth?” Rouge cut in before Ivo could prematurely set the deal. Her eyes narrowed again at the intruder, and he looked back at her with eyes that could have turned water into ice. “I’ll admit that his resourcefulness to find his way here is impressive on its own,” she continued, noticing with mild surprise how his glare morphed instantly into a look of shock, “but how can we know that what he claims is true and that he knows where most of the other emeralds are? What if he takes the radar and runs?”

“I appreciate your concern, Rouge,” the doctor responded. “But Shadow here is the real deal. He’s tracked down and stolen the emeralds more times than I can count! Adding an extra little accessory to his collection is something I can afford to do.”

“Oh please, you two are going to make me blush,” Shadow said, sounding much more flustered than Rouge would have thought from a simple compliment. “But you should listen to us, Rouge. I can vouch for my own skills all night, but Eggman’s seen me in action.”

Rouge resisted the urge to question the odd nickname, deciding that it was ultimately unimportant in the grand scheme of things. “Fine then,” she conceded. “But be aware that if you cross us, I will track you down and this time around, I will not show you any mercy.”

Shadow crossed his arms, glaring at her once more as Eggman murmured a curious ‘this time around?’ under his breath. “Oh believe me, bat girl, I’ll do whatever I have to do to get what I want.”

It was far from a reassuring statement by any means, but Rouge knew that, once again, she wasn’t the one who controlled the board right then. It just meant that there was one more player she had to keep an eye on. She turned her attention back to Eggman and gave a single nod.

“Very well,” the doctor stated. “Welcome to Team Eggman, Shadow. Our first order of business… charging up this cannon!”

_ Hold on just a little longer, Maria. With all the power our grandfather placed in me, I swear I will avenge you! _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: Team Eggman goes back to Prison Island to set their plan in motion, but things get complicated quickly as they run into some unexpected guests.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To explain the fourth emerald, in SA2, Rouge had an emerald on her when she went to make her deal with Eggman. In this AU, Shadow did not have an extra emerald on him, and so I moved it here.

On the coastline of Prison Island, the odd team of Eggman, Rouge, and Shadow hid in the trees, ready for their debriefing, although it seemed Eggman was having some second thoughts.

“Having to come back here isn’t my idea of a vacation,” he grumbled, glaring at the hedgehog. “How can you be sure your intel is correct? Why would the Chaos Emeralds be here on the island? Are you absolutely sure?”

Teal eyes rolled as Shadow let out a loud, dramatic sigh. “So paranoid… I swear, it’s like you don’t trust me or something!”

He was met with two blank stares in response.

“Fine!” he snapped. “Then let me prove it! There’s three Chaos Emeralds in a vault here on this island!” With that he pulled out a shard of the Master Emerald, closing his eyes as he focused on it. Sure enough, only a few seconds later, Eggman’s radar started to ping, and he looked at the screen in curiosity. “There!” Shadow proclaimed, putting the shard back away as the pinging ceased. “Proof enough for you?”

“Shadow… You did say ‘three’, correct?”

“Yes,” the hedgehog replied impatiently. “Three of them in a vault, now we just need to--”

“Because my radar picked up four.”

Shadow blinked, looking nonplussed. “Four? You sure you looked at it right?”

“He did,” Rouge answered, her unexpected interjection causing Shadow to jump in surprise. “I’m attuned to Chaos Energy. I felt four spikes.”

Shadow pursed his lips, pondering over the information. “So that means… there’s a big chance that the unaccounted-for Chaos Emerald is here on the island, too!” He grinned. “Lucky us!”

“Or it’s the other one you claim to know about,” Eggman said. “In either case, we need to track it down and bring it with us.” He turned to look at Rouge. “Can I trust you to do that? It seems like you have a natural radar for them.”

“Yes,” the bat replied with a firm nod.

“Good!” Eggman rubbed his hands together, satisfied. “Now, let’s discuss how we’re going to do this. I will go in first and distract the military troops, allowing Shadow to sneak in the base without being detected. Then Rouge will enter the armory, where she will set the timer on these dynamite packs.” With that, he brought out a timer from a compartment in his mech, handing it over to Rouge, who took it without a word. “Once that is in place, we’ll blow up the whole island and get away before anyone has the chance to know what hit them!”

The doctor turned his attention back to Shadow. “Meanwhile, you’ll have to sneak into the cargo area and grab the Chaos Emeralds. That’s a challenge for such a worthy treasure hunter as yourself, isn’t it Shadow?”

“Y-Yeah!” Shadow exclaimed, suddenly standing at attention and failing to cover his stutter. “Easy as pie! Just wait and see!”

Eggman hummed, satisfied, before shifting his tone into something more commanding. “We only have thirty minutes to pull this mission off! And we only get one try, so don’t fail me! And Rouge?”

The bat looked over to him.

“Don’t forget about the fourth emerald.”

She looked away again. “Of course.”

With that, the trio dashed off to put their plan into motion.

* * *

With Eggman taking the lead, their rush into the base was remarkably easy, and the doctor laughed at the sheer amount of damage he had done to military property. “Such worthless drones,” he scoffed, patting his mech. “I could make better in my sleep.”

“I’ve definitely seen better,” Shadow agreed as Rouge crossed her arms, looking out over the sea. “Not up close just yet, but I’ve looked over some reports in my time.”

“How nice to have a fellow appreciator of fine technology,” Eggman remarked, causing Shadow to smirk. “But that’s for a later time. Is everybody ready? On with the show!”

However, it seemed as though the show would have to be delayed, as a new voice made its way over to them.

“Oh, Sonic!”

A pair of arms enveloped Shadow’s torso and the hedgehog tensed up, bristling with a grimace on his face. _Not_ _ again… _

“I thought I’d never see you again!” the voice continued, chipper and joyful. “I’m so glad you made it!”

“Watch who you’re grabbing, Amy,” Shadow growled, and the arms flew off him in an instant.

“Shadow! Ugh, what are  _ you _ doing here?”

Shadow turned around and was met with the sight of Amy Rose, red-faced at her mix-up. The girl was frowning at him, her green eyes narrowed with disappointment, and Shadow put one hand on his hip, any semblance of a good mood having gone up in smoke.  His relationship with Amy was odd, to say the least. Neither particularly liked each other, but neither ever claimed to hate each other, either. There was some degree of animosity, stemming from the sheer amount of times Shadow had gotten Sonic in trouble, and the rivalry they shared when it came to claiming the blue blur’s attention. Ultimately, they were far from friends, and so their meetings tended to sound more hostile than not.

“I could ask you the same thing,” he retorted.

“Hmph!” Amy stuck up her nose, looking up at him unflinchingly. “I’m looking for Sonic,” she announced, causing Shadow’s eyes to widen.

“What’s that?” Eggman said, spinning his mech over at the sound of conversation. “Sonic’s on this island?”

“Who’s Sonic?” Rouge asked, out of the loop for once.

“Doctor Eggman!” Amy gasped, taking a step back and reaching for her hammer, but upon seeing Rouge in the mix, she quickly realized how outnumbered she was. Letting out a small, scared noise, she still raised her hammer, holding it in a defensive position as she backed away.

“Amy, your timing is impeccable,” Eggman growled through his teeth. Looking down to his subordinates, he ordered them to go. “Leave it to me. I’ll take care of her,” he said, gesturing at the pink hedgehog. “You two, go! And if you see Sonic, attack on sight! That’s an order!”

“Who’s Sonic?” Rouge repeated, beginning to sound frustrated, but Shadow grabbed her arm and started to pull her away.

“I’ll tell you over the communicator once I’m inside, now go!”

Eggman turned his sights back on to Amy, who was looking much bolder now that it was just him facing off against her. He approached her in his mech, and she began to move forward in kind, with her weapon raised…

...until a blue and yellow modified airplane landed in front between them. Eggman bit back a groan.

Tails. Fantastic. Just what he needed.

“Boy am I glad to see you!” Amy cheered, raising her weapon to the sky.

“Stand back Amy!” Tails warned, to which the girl frowned.

“I can fight, too!” she protested, and Tails’ eyes widened as he realized what he implied.

“No, wait, I only meant that we need to fight missiles with missiles when we’re up against Eggman!” he explained in a rush. “You’re a great fighter, but this might get really dangerous!”

Eggman sat back in his mech, tuning out the conversation taking place in front of him and just barely registering the voices coming over the communicator. He presumed it was Shadow briefing Rouge about Sonic, and turned his thoughts back to his next move.

He could attack now, while both his opponents were distracted… Yes, that could work!

With the press of a button, he launched a missile towards Tails, and the fox only barely managed to defend himself by launching one of his own to collide with it. The explosion was too close for comfort for the young Mobians, and as Tails made his way forward to fight, Amy seemed to decide to slip to the side to wait this battle out after all.

No matter. Those two weren’t very important in the grand scheme of things, anyhow. In just a moment, they would be among the sea of frightened earthlings, looking up at the Eclipse Cannon and saying their prayers. Eggman just needed to make sure Shadow and Rouge got to their tasks.

He could play the role of the distraction.

Battling with Tails took brainpower as well as firepower; both had to compensate for slow turns and careful aiming. Eggman took great care in making sure Tails didn’t get behind him. An attack from the rear could prove catastrophic if he didn’t manage to dodge.  Shot after shot was launched, with both mechs stomping around in circles, trying to get the upper hand. The doctor had to hand it to the boy; he could build some pretty impressive machinery that could withstand some pretty intense impacts. The hull on his plane was very durable, and as Eggman calculated the risk of going for a total victory, he realized it was a fool’s errand. He could win, absolutely, but at great damage to his own machine. If he wanted to get off this island alive, he needed his mech in the greatest working condition he could manage.

There was only one thing to do, then. Eggman stopped firing and heaved a sigh, gathering Tails’ attention.

“This time, I’ll let you go,” he said, pointing at the fox. “But the next time we meet… you won’t be so lucky!”

With that, he walked off, satisfied at having bought his subordinates enough time. Behind him, he could hear Amy and Tails refocus their efforts into saving Sonic.

Ah yes, that reminded him…

A safe distance away, he picked up his communicator. “Rouge, come in.”

_ “Rouge here,” _ came the response only a second later. Eggman grinned. What a punctual assistant he had gained!

“Have you been informed about Sonic?”

_ “I’ve been told a great deal of things, of varying relevance. Shadow has many opinions about him, but I’ve gathered that he’s a hedgehog, blue, quick on his feet, and our adversary.” _

“Shadow told you all that?”

_ “He told me the first three things. The last I gleaned from your orders.” _

Eggman frowned. He didn’t know the relationship between Sonic and Shadow for certain; he had always assumed that a degree of animosity existed between them due to the frequent legal mixups, but if Shadow hadn’t made their stance against him clear…

Well, he was assuming again. He had no time to ask for clarification if he wanted to make it off the island alive, and if Shadow’s allegiance ended up being shaky due to Sonic’s involvement, it just meant that Eggman would have to keep a closer eye on him if needed.

“That’s just about right,” he confirmed. “He’s got a mouth on him, so expect him to try to taunt you and distract you.”

_ “Understood.” _

“Have you set the timer?”

_ “I’m approaching the armory. I’ll be finishing my first task in a moment, and then I’ll track down the fourth emerald as instructed.” _

  
“Good,” Eggman praised, pleased at her diligence. Despite the few hiccups they had already encountered, his team was already proving to be more than enough to handle any obstacles thrown their way. “Remember that it’s  _ crucial _ that we find it before the island blows up. And remember, if you see a speedy blue hedgehog, attack on sight!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: Rouge sees a speedy blue hedgehog and attacks on sight.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Maria's age is said to be twelve in Sonic X, but I've made her fifteen for angst-related reasons.
> 
> This chapter is also one of my favorites. I hope you like it, too.

Shadow smoothed back his quills as he observed the stronghold he was in. It was larger than he had envisioned, due to lack of information, but that was nothing new. He had made enough heists despite not being able to access classified records and information to be used to going with the flow when it mattered. He took a moment to stretch his arms and legs as he made a more careful look around.

To most others, this would be a daunting endeavour, especially when there was a time limit, but to Shadow? Just another day.

The thought made him grin.

A crackle of static sounded from his earpiece as Rouge’s voice filtered through on the shared channel. _“I’m in position, Doctor,”_ she droned, and Shadow grimaced at her eternal monotone. In addition to being a thief _and_ a killjoy 一 she was so _quiet_ and _dismissive_ when he was telling her about Sonic! 一 was she also a soulless robot?

...Actually, that would explain a few things…

_“Tell me when.”_

_“There’s been an unexpected delay on my end,”_ Eggman replied. _“There’s no more time to waste! Set the timer for 15 minutes, and make sure you find that damn fourth Chaos Emerald before the dynamite goes off! Shadow, get on with your mission right away!”_

“Five minutes should be plenty,” he replied flippantly, readying himself for a high-speed heist. “Here I go!”

As he dashed inside, tracker in hand, Eggman gave him one more push. _“Shadow, you’ve got to find the Chaos Emeralds before the military finds you!”_

“Aww, are you worried about me, Doctor?” Shadow crooned, his eyes focusing on the first pinging light on the radar. “Don’t be. I have this all under control.”

_“You had better!”_ came the last annoyed comment until the static crackled again and the line went dead. _Good._ Shadow needed to concentrate on the task at hand, and oh… how eager he was to have those beautiful jewels in his grasp!

He started scaling a wall, grinning as the pinging from the radar grew louder and more insistent. This mission would be a piece of cake!

* * *

Rouge the Bat darted through the forest, wings spread wide as she flew. She concentrated, trying to focus on chaos energy signatures. She felt three behind her 一 the emeralds in the military compound 一 and one more somewhere in front of her, though it was harder to pinpoint.

She knew time was of the essence. She doubted something as powerful as the Chaos Emeralds could be destroyed by an explosion, but all the same, coming back to find them in the wreckage left behind sounded like an unpleasant chore. It would be either buried in seawater, or corpses, and frankly, Rouge wanted nothing to do with either.

Not to mention, there was an aspect of pride to it as well. She was the Ultimate Lifeform. She couldn’t afford to be the only one to fail her task, especially if Shadow was going to rub it in her face, and she was _certain_ he was.

She frowned. Shadow, despite only having been a part of the team for a couple of hours, had already managed to find ways to get under her skin and irritate her even when he wasn’t around. He was cocky, self-absorbed, loud-mouthed, oblivious, and carried that obnoxious air of incredible overcompensation that most fifteen-year-olds had.

Fifteen-year-olds like…

A stab of pain went through Rouge’s heart, and she dipped in the sky before righting herself again, glaring ahead. No. **No.** The last thing she needed was to even _remotely_ compare _him_ to _her._

_Young… Afraid… Feeling alone, even when surrounded… Putting on a brave face because it was better than hiding and crying, screaming out because the feeling of the world having abandoned her was sometimes too great, only to be found hours later by Rouge, who hugged her and reminded her that it was okay, that she was there for her, she would always be there for her, forever, I promise you Maria, I’ll make everything better just don’t cry like that anymore--_

“Stop!”

She said it aloud, firmly, making sure she heard herself and came back down to earth, to reality. Maria was gone. She was doing this for her. And Shadow… she couldn’t assume to know anything about him, about loneliness or fear or trying to pretend that the world didn’t feel like an attack at every turn.

She needed to find the emerald. That was all.

The energy was getting stronger and stronger, and soon Rouge’s ear picked up the sound of an engine rumbling. She landed on a tree branch and looked down, and sure enough, there was an armored truck making its way toward the compound.

It seemed as though this emerald was newly-acquired.

As she swooped down, still on edge from the memories that had bubbled up during her travels, Rouge thought that it was just as well that the government never saw their newest prize, and she prepared to unleash hell upon the poor unfortunate soldiers who were unlucky enough to be the ones to guard it.

* * *

Rouge wiped the last traces of blood off of the navy blue Chaos Emerald before letting go of the guard’s shirt and letting them fall to the ground. She took off without a second glance back; if they weren’t all dead already, the explosion would surely finish the job. Either way, she didn’t care. They would have died anyhow once her plan came to fruition. Them, and the rest of the world.

She didn’t care about them. Not when Maria’s promise for vengeance still rested in her heart.

As she landed in a new tree, she tapped at her headset, tuning in to the private channel between her and Ivo. “I’ve secured my emerald,” she said. “Preparing to return to the ARK.”

_“Magnificent, Rouge!”_ he praised, and Rouge almost felt good about it. No doubt because of the man’s resemblance to her grandfa-- to Professor Robotnik.

...She was getting too soft.

_“I’m already on the outskirts of the island,”_ he informed her. _“Once Shadow is ready, we will leave together and transport back up.”_

“I might be able to transport you both, myself,” she remarked, holding the emerald up in her hand, “with the power of Chaos Control.”

_“If we get to the point of needing that, I will tell you,”_ Ivo replied. _“In the meantime, start making your way off of the island, there’s hardly ten minutes left!”_

As the line spewed static and disengaged, Rouge held up the emerald, preparing to leave…

...until she sensed something new. An unexpected fifth chaos energy spike, back toward the compound. Rouge frowned, looking into the distance, puzzling over this new development.

Wasn’t there also one last emerald to find?

It was unlikely, Rouge figured, that the final Chaos Emerald would have also appeared on the island, but it wasn’t something she could afford to disregard. Gripping the blue Chaos Emerald in her hand, she summoned all of her concentration and warped to the new signature.

Yet, once she made it to the place it was supposed to be, it had already moved far beyond where she appeared.

Confused, she tried once more, only to get the same result. She tried a third time, just in case, and it happened again as she found herself steadily moving away from the compound, following this strange fifth energy signature across the island.

She decided to try a new tactic. She did one final Chaos Control to somewhere beyond the signature, and put the emerald away once she sensed it approaching her. Now all she had to do was--

_“Rouge? I’ve got a small problem…”_

Shadow’s voice sounded in her ear and made her pause. He sounded… defeated…

_“I can’t believe that I’m trapped inside this locked safe with the Chaos Emeralds! I guess I won’t be able to call myself a treasure hunter anymore… And there’s not much time left, but I was wondering… if you would help me?”_

Rouge frowned. Shadow had failed? Was all his bravado truly just that? Only bravado?

She knew being disappointed was a correct response to this situation, but she couldn’t explain to herself why she felt as incredibly disappointed as she did.

_“Of course you’re not answering, I don’t even know why I bothered calling you. You’re probably off doing whatever, being cool and great and… Fuck it, I’ll just--”_

The line went dead, taking Shadow’s pained voice with it, and Rouge was reminded once more of Maria, and she had heard that tone of voice before, the hopelessness, the upset and the brokenness and…

And…

“Damn it,” Rouge whispered, fingers clenching around the emerald as her heart gave in. She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t let another fifteen-year-old kid just die. Not when she could do something about it.

Shadow was obnoxious and self-absorbed and had ridiculous delusions of grandeur, and Rouge was not going to let him die.

Rouge focused her energy on her emerald one more time, prepared to warp over to the safe to rescue her teammate, but then the sound of leaves rustling and footsteps hitting the ground distracted her, and the chaos energy signature that she had been tracking grew stronger… and then there was someone else in the clearing in front of her, looking at her in surprise and confusion.

A speedy blue hedgehog. Rouge’s eyes widened.

Of all times to run into Sonic, it had to be now.

Of all times to find someone whose chaos energy flowed as strong as her own, it had to be _now!_

“Hey, is that a Chaos Emerald?” he asked, pointing at her hand, and instead of replying, Rouge aimed a kick at his arm, which the hedgehog only narrowly dodged.

“Hey!” he protested. “What’s the big idea?”

“Don’t take it personally,” Rouge responded, leaping forward for a second attack as Sonic dodged again. “I’m just following orders.”

“Whose orders?” he asked, dashing behind her and rushing forth, but it was Rouge’s turn to retaliate, spinning around and kicking Sonic into a tree.

“None of your business.” She gripped the emerald again. “Now if you don’t mind, I’ve got to find Shadow and--”

“Shadow?” Sonic echoed, sounding surprised. “I thought I heard Amy mention him… Wait! Does that mean…?” The hedgehog jumped to his feet, pointing an accusing finger at her. “You’re working for Eggman?!”

Rouge had no idea how he managed to deduce any of that, but with the minutes counting down, she couldn’t afford to ask. “You’re very astute,” she praised. “Too bad that will give you no advantages over me.”

“Oh yeah?” Sonic taunted. “I’m Sonic the Hedgehog, I don’t need any advantages against the likes of you!”

Ordinarily, Rouge wouldn’t bother giving an answer, but there was something about the way the hedgehog spoke… upbeat and teasing and bright… it made her _want_ to banter, in the same way she used to with…

“Then I guess you don’t know who I am,” Rouge responded, pushing back the pang of sadness that came back yet again. “I’m Rouge the Bat… the Ultimate Lifeform!” With that, she Chaos Controlled beside Sonic, aiming a punch at his gut which he somehow managed to get out of the way of. “And you should absolutely be afraid of me!"

“Afraid?” Sonic retorted, confidence exuding from his entire being, confidence so genuine that it threw Rouge for a loop at just how _different_ he was from Shadow and Maria. “I’m the fastest thing alive! I don’t need to be afraid of anything!”

And with that, he spin-dashed toward her, and instinctively, Rouge balled herself up and rocketed forward as well, the two of them colliding in the air with a loud **_crack_ ** and landing several feet apart.

Rouge recovered immediately. “I have to hand it to you,” she admitted. “It’s impressive that you’re able to go so fast without the help of an emerald. Or special shoes like Shadow’s.”

Sonic grinned at that. “I have to hand it to you, too. That was a pretty neat trick you did earlier! Just appearing like that out of nowhere.”

And even though it was a better plan to just keep her mouth shut, to incapacitate this hedgehog and finish her mission, there was something about him, something about his bright demeanor, about his genuineness, about his presence… Rouge was intrigued by him, someone who held a power within him that she always thought her own, and yet seemed freed by it instead of constrained by what should have been… and she answered him.

“That was Chaos Control, something I am able to do with the help of a Chaos Emerald.” Then, after just a second of hesitation, she felt herself soften even more and told him, “I’m sure you can do it as well. Your chaos energy is almost as strong as mine.”

“You don’t say?” Sonic grinned at her, earlier hostility momentarily forgotten, and it was… nice. “I’ll have to try it myself one day!”

Rouge knew there was no ‘one day’. Soon enough the world would be destroyed, and more than likely, Sonic would be destroyed with it. The thought hurt her, and she cursed herself for getting so soft so quickly. She had to remember what she was here for. Who she was doing this for.

...But to meet someone who was _even just a little bit_ like her was…

_“Shadow! Rouge!”_

Eggman’s voice rang out from her headset, loud enough for Sonic to hear, and the hedgehog’s cheerful demeanor shifted to tense in an instant, and Rouge found herself clenching her jaw as the doctor continued.

_“What are you doing? Hurry and get back here, right now, before the island blows up with you on it!”_

Green eyes widened in horror. “Blows up?!” Sonic cried, and Rouge knew the time for fighting was over.

“Go! Now!” she ordered, leaping away from him and holding her emerald aloft. “If you are the fastest thing alive, then get out of here.” She glanced at the timer she had set for herself and snarled. “You have a minute and a half to live, and I have to get to Shadow before…”

“Shadow’s in trouble?” Sonic sounded concerned, and the unexpectedness of it distracted Rouge for a few seconds, enough time for him to keep talking. “Go rescue him. He’s… a good person, underneath it all. And as for me, I’ve got some friends of my own to rescue!”

_Friends..._

Rouge had no time to correct him, but was there really anything to correct? Had she really, in the middle of trying to close herself off, trying to destroy everything around her, become attached to Shadow? Had she befriended Sonic, despite attacking him?

What was _wrong_ with her?

Yet even when she asked herself that question, it sounded wrong. New thoughts and feelings were bubbling to the surface: concern of her own, over Shadow’s well-being. Curiosity, over just who Sonic the Hedgehog was. Regret that she hadn’t really listened to Shadow’s rambling about Sonic… Perhaps she might have learned a thing or two more, hidden inside all the information that she had prematurely assumed useless.

“We’ll finish this next time, Hedgehog,” she declared, feeling a pit in her stomach at the lie. There would be no next time, and she knew it. Concentrating, and aware that Sonic hadn’t run away just yet, she clutched the emerald and bellowed, “Chaos Control!”

As she warped away, she could imagine the look of amazement on Sonic’s face, and tried to feel anything aside from remorse.

* * *

Shadow hated a lot of things. He hated getting ambushed by a flying drone and getting shot at by missiles. He hated having to run around in circles, avoiding attacks when there was no escape route. He hated ultimately being captured because at the end of the day, he was fast, not powerful.

_Without his shoes, he wasn’t even fast._

He hated being locked up, holding his final treasures in his hands and finding no solace in them for the first time in his life. He hated calling for help, and he hated his pleas falling on deaf ears.

He hated being alone.

He hated being expendable.

He hated that there was still nobody in the world who was willing to save him.

As he clutched the emeralds to his chest and felt hot, angry tears began to spill down his cheeks, he hated himself, too. Shadow the Hedgehog… he was smart, good-looking, resourceful, successful… but unloved, and the crushing knowledge that he would die that way made him begin to silently sob.

“Shadow!”

He gasped, eyes blinking out tears as he hardly dared believe his ears. Was that…?

“Shadow, are you there?” the voice demanded, louder this time, and Shadow’s jaw went slack.

“R… Rouge?” he whimpered, hardly loud enough to be heard, but then footsteps made a beeline for him, and there she was, rushing toward him with a mad, focused glint in her eye.

**“Chaos…”**

Her hand reached out, and even though it was too late, there was only seconds left before everything blew up, Shadow got to his feet, shifting the emeralds to one arm so that he could reach back.

He wasn’t going to die alone… Someone had come back for him, even in the face of futility…

More tears spilled down his cheeks, and her hand grasped his.

**“...Control!”**

The next thing he knew, Shadow felt the world around him compress and elongate. He felt weightless, and then heavier than he’d ever been before, and then everything returned to normal in an instant and his feet were back on solid ground. Shadow’s eyes roved back and forth in absolute disbelief.

They were on the ARK.

They were alive.

Rouge had saved him.

“What the fuck?” he whispered, a new round of tears springing to his eyes as he felt her hand leave his, and the bat walked over to the window, looking down at the world. _“What the fuck?”_

Shadow the Hedgehog needed a moment.

* * *

From so high up, it was hard to see the island exploding, but Rouge’s eyes were perfect. She saw the tiny sparks of orange flare up in the endless blue ocean. Her finger tapped at her headset, and she gave Ivo a quick update, apologizing for the lack of communication, attributing it to having been too focused on her tasks. The doctor expressed some degree of relief and satisfaction at so many successes, but Rouge’s mind and heart weren’t in the plan at that moment.

She wondered if Sonic was okay. If he had saved his friends, and whether he knew that it didn’t matter in the end.

She remembered Shadow’s eyes, filled with tears of despair and a look of incredulity at her help.

She thought of Maria, smiling brightly like Sonic, bawling with untold fury and terror like Shadow, covered in bloodstains as her shaking hands tugged down the lever and…

_Are you proud of me, or disappointed?_ Rouge wondered, resting her hand against the glass. _I saved someone, but it wasn’t you. I saved someone when I promised you revenge, but… I couldn’t leave him behind. I couldn’t do it, Maria…_

“Why’d you do it?”

Shadow was standing behind her, and when Rouge turned to face him, she saw his eyes, red and puffy from crying and covered in smudged blue eyeliner. She saw his arms, gripping at three emeralds, more pieces to the puzzle that she was struggling to solve. She saw his face, angry and confused and grateful and so, so young.

“Did you just come back for the emeralds?” he demanded. “That’s it, isn’t it? It was just easy to carry me back because I was holding them, right?”

She could have lied. Said ‘yes’ and severed this bond before it began to take shape, made the inevitable easier for herself, but in the wake of everything that had happened, all the dilemmas and the stresses and uncertainties, Rouge wanted to be selfish.

“I needed the emeralds, I can’t deny that. But… I don’t want you to die, Shadow.”

“Why?” His voice sounded desperate, and Rouge remembered how he broke at compliments, at validation, and a thought came to her, another horrendously selfish thought that might bond him to her forever if she acted on it. “Why not?”

Rouge closed her eyes, bracing herself. “I couldn’t let another one die,” she said, and even _that_ felt like revealing too much.

“What the hell does that even mean?!” Shadow sounded so frustrated, so confused, so lost and yet so close to an answer…

So Rouge caved, deciding to answer it for him. She walked up to him, raising a hand, and, too far gone to even consider hesitating, awkwardly ruffled the spines on top of Shadow’s head. Teal eyes grew wide, and Shadow gaped at her, not moving a muscle. Rouge cleared her throat, embarrassed but certain, and said, “You did a good job. I’m… proud of you.”

There was a loud clatter as Shadow’s arms fell to his sides in shock and the emeralds tumbled to the ground. Almost immediately, Shadow caught himself, scrambling to pick the gems back up, and Rouge knew that she had cemented something between them.

She only hoped that she never had to regret it.

Rouge turned back to the window as Shadow scuffled around behind her, looking back down at the island and remembering her run-in with Sonic. She wondered if, in another time or place, in another world entirely, she could have bonded with him as well.

“I saw Sonic in the forest,” she remarked, and the sudden silence told her that Shadow had ceased moving.

“O-Oh?” he asked, absolutely failing to sound nonchalant. “That’s cool.”

Rouge recalled the way Shadow had talked about the other hedgehog at length. It wasn’t a stretch to assume that he thought highly of Sonic.

So she told him the truth. “He seemed concerned about you when I mentioned you. Called you a good person.”

A second loud clatter told her that Shadow had dropped the emeralds again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: Rouge tries to adjust to being a sibling of sorts again, and Eggman targets the moon.


	8. Chapter 8

_“Happy birthday, Rouge!”_

_The bat looked in mild surprise at the cupcake in front of her, clustered with six lit candles. Maria’s smile glowed in the soft candlelight, while Professor Gerald observed from a safe distance. Rouge hesitantly held out her hands, watching closely for any warning signs that Maria would start to get tremors, but the cake landed evenly in her hands, and Maria was fine._

_“You didn’t have to do this for me.”_

_“It’s your birthday, I had to get you a cake!”_

_Rouge chose not to remind her sister that she was never truly born. Instead, she looked at the dessert with interest. It looked oddly perfect, unlike most of the things that came out of the kitchens whenever Maria was involved, with the exception of the frosting being off-center._

_“I ordered it from Earth,” Maria explained, surprising Rouge. “Because I heard that Earth-made snacks taste different and can last a lot longer thanks to preservatives. They’re not healthy, so I’m not allowed to eat any…”_

_Rouge felt a pang of guilt at that._

_“...but this isn’t for me. It’s for you! So hurry and blow out the candles and make a wish!”_

_Rouge stared at the candles, feeling an odd sense of wonder. Six years. Six years since her creation was finalized and she was woken up. Six years of rapid growth and maturation, of training and learning, of embracing her role as…_

_As…?_

What was she supposed to be, again?

_She blew out the candles and made a wish, but what she wished for remained unclear. Maria grinned and Professor Gerald stepped forward, plucking the half-melted candles from Rouge’s cupcake. “It’s a milestone year,” he remarked, wiping the excess frosting from the candles. “You may remember when I told you about your rapid maturation rate of three-to-one?”_

She did not.

_But she nodded with perfect clarity and certainty._

_“We engineered you to grow in body and mind at a rate three times that of the average human,” Professor Gerald explained anyhow, for the man did love to explain and reexplain until he was out of breath. “This was to ensure your quick adjustment into our world. That means that even though you’ve been among us for six years, you have the body and brain of someone eighteen years of age.”_

_“Eighteen years?” Rouge echoed, looking at her cupcake again in wonder._

_“That means you’d be an adult,” Maria realized._

_Rouge glanced back up at Maria; despite being an ‘adult’, whether that truly meant something or not to someone like her, Maria and Professor Gerald and all the rest of the humans on the ARK were much larger than her. “Does that make me the older sister, then?” she asked._

_“What? No way! I’ll always be the big sister, no matter how old you get!” Maria’s bright blue eyes closed as she stuck out her tongue at Rouge, completely unbecoming of a fifteen year old girl, but it made Rouge smile._

_“Okay then… Big Sister Maria.”_

_That made Maria giggle, a sweet sound that sent another pang straight to Rouge’s core. “Don’t forget it, Little Sister Rouge!”_

_The bat was still smiling as she took a bite of the cupcake, and her eyes widened in amazement. She could taste it! Well and truly taste it! She looked back up at Maria and Professor Gerald, and Maria’s giggles turned into pure laughter at the bat's incredulous expression.  
_

_“I asked them to make it as sweet as possible, since I know your tastebuds don’t work like everyone else’s.”_

_“That was to ensure a lack of pickiness in your eating habits,” Professor Gerald explained, and Maria’s affectionately exasperated glance at him told Rouge that this was likely something he had told them several times. “A lack of taste derives less enjoyment from food, but it also means you’ll be less likely to have preferences and go hungry from a lack of options.”_

_Rouge kept chewing until the sweetness flooded her mouth and the pastry was little more than mush on her tongue. She was reluctant to swallow, but she had another question to ask, and it was improper to talk with one’s mouth full. The sweet taste managed to linger as she spoke again. “Professor? Is my being eighteen years old the milestone you mentioned?”_

_“Aha, clever girl! Well done, Rouge, I’d forgotten.” The professor cleared his throat as Rouge took another bite of the sweet, sweet cupcake. “As you know, Rouge, you are essentially ageless, or at least, you will be once you cease maturation. Your rapid growth was something we projected sustainable only for the first few years of your life. You remember the many years in which you ate more than three times your weight in food in a single day?”_

Rouge did not remember, yet her head nodded up and down again.

_“Such growth requires a lot of energy to maintain. Ordinarily we would use a Chaos Emerald, but…” Professor Gerald frowned and Maria frowned with him, and Rouge felt herself frown as well, despite once again having no memory of what happened._

_“As such,” he continued on, “we figured that six years was the maximum we could sustain this growth. From this point on, your growth should continue on as the average person’s does, with a one-to-one ratio, and your body and brain will continue to mature until fully developed at twenty five or twenty six years of age.”_

_Rouge paused in her chewing, contemplating this. Six years old. Eighteen years old. The beginning of the rest of her life, until she reached a point of agelessness…_

_Amazing how some things made so little sense, and yet were perfectly easy for her to accept and believe._

Then, the world around her changed.

_The vast expanse of space stretched out in front of her, out the window facing the world below, and Maria, pale and frail-looking, stood next to her, her exhausted eyes looking brightly at the Earth._

_“Rouge… What do you think it’s like on Earth?” she asked, voice weak but still full of wonder._

_“The professor said his life’s work is dedicated to all of those who live down there. He once told that the reason for his existence was making people happy through the power of science.”_

But wait… Didn’t he create weapons? Didn’t he create…

_“Rouge…” Maria sounded so sad, and Rouge…_

_“Big Sister Maria… I just don’t know anything anymore. I often wonder why I was created, what my purpose is for being here. Aside from…”_

_She looked away from the endless void of space, over to the girl who looked like a simple cough would be enough to knock her over, and then back to the window, resting a gloved hand on the glass._

_“Maybe if I go down there, I will find the answers. Maybe…”_

_Her voice trailed off, and for a moment she looked down at the blue planet, so far away and so full of mysteries. She heard shifting beside her, and she looked back at Maria, who looked down at the world with such a forlorn expression that Rouge’s heart broke._

_“Maria…”_

_Her gaunt face turned to hers, and then…_

Everything changed again.

_Maria’s face was the palest she had ever seen, drenched in sweat, with clumps of blond hair plastered to her forehead as she heaved breath after heavy breath, and Rouge screamed and cried out and slammed her fists against the glass dome surrounding her._

_“MARIA! MARIA!”_

_“Sayonara,” she wheezed, and Rouge saw red bleed out all over her dress as Maria’s eyes struggled to remain open, “Big Sister Rouge…”_

**_“MARIA!”_ **

“Hey.”

Rouge gasped, jolted out of her reverie which had only served to pose more questions than it answered. Her hands flew to her head, massaging at her temples as she tried to make sense of these new memories that had resurfaced… but she only felt sorrow and shock and an overwhelming sense of loss and uncertainty.

_What was real anymore?_

“What’s up with you?”

Rouge’s hands lowered as Shadow walked up next to her, glancing down with poorly-veiled interest at the sight of Earth so far below them. Just like Maria had--

_No. Don’t compare them._

“It’s a headache,” she lied. “If I use Chaos Control too often it takes a toll on me.”

“Shame. An ability like that sure comes in handy.”

He sounded remarkably calm now, considering he was certain he was about to die only minutes ago. Rouge considered that he might be practiced at hiding his true thoughts and feelings, though instead of an all-around poker face like Rouge had, he just distracted others with boasting and flirting and an outgoing, spunky attitude.

The thought was saddening.

“Anyways… I guess you want me to say 'thanks' for saving me and stuff.”

“Do whatever you want to do.”

Shadow exhaled through his nose, glaring at her. “Wow, and here I was, all afraid that _I_ was being the ungrateful one!”

Rouge frowned. “I wasn’t saying that to be dismissive. I was saying that you can apologize if you want to, regardless of what I want.”

Color flooded Shadow’s cheeks and he stared intensely at the window in front of him. “Oh. Sorry.”

Silence descended on both of them, and Rouge had no idea how to break it. The few memories she had all involved someone else speaking to her, first. Rouge didn’t need a full grasp on her past to understand that she wasn’t a good conversationalist.

Luckily for her, Shadow seemed to find keeping his mouth shut impossible. “So a headache, huh? That sucks. How many times did you Chaos Control down on the island?”

Rouge pondered it over. “Once to get to you in the vault. Once to bring us up here. And a few times to try to locate Sonic.”

Shadow hummed, once again failing to hide his interest. “Why were you looking for him anyway? Fighting him wasn’t the priority.”

“I felt a new Chaos Energy signature and wanted to make sure it wasn’t the final emerald,” Rouge replied. “I never expected to find someone with similar abilities as myself.”

Shadow hummed again, seeming satisfied with the answer, but he paused, cocking his head to the side and observing his reflection in the glass. “Shit,” he swore under his breath, and Rouge watched in mild fascination as he took out a small tube of some sort. With the side of his glove, he wiped at his eyes until the blue marks were gone, then opened the tube and applied new blue markings to his eyes with a steady and practiced hand. Once he was done, he tilted his head from left to right, observing both eyes and making sure they were even before recapping his tube and putting it away.

When he lifted his eyes back to Rouge, he seemed unnerved by her curiosity. “What?” he demanded, quills spiking up defensively.

“I didn’t know you painted your markings on,” she replied truthfully.

Shadow blinked, staring back at her. “Yeah. It’s makeup. Just like yours.” At Rouge’s blank stare, he huffed, crossing his arms. “Your eyeshadow? You know? The red on your eyelids?”

“I didn’t paint that on.”

Shadow’s arms dropped to his sides. “You’re kidding me.”

“No, that’s always how I’ve looked,” Rouge explained, and when Shadow didn’t look convinced, she lifted one finger and swiped it over her closed eyelid before holding it forth for him to observe. A pristine white-gloved fingertip stared right back at him, and the look on Shadow’s face was…

...Why did Rouge have the urge to _laugh_ at just how livid he looked?

“I can’t fucking believe this!” Shadow roared, and the urge to burst into laughter only intensified, and Rouge couldn’t hold back a small smile. “I try so hard _every day_ to look amazing, and your damn makeup is fucking hardcoded into your fucking DNA! Fuck this! Fuck you! I can’t believe this shit!”

As Shadow continued his impassioned tirade about the personal attack that this evidently was against him, Rouge felt the treacherous bit of fondness she had for him grow. Unable to stop herself, she reached out for him, and as her hand landed on his head again, Shadow stopped moving and ranting, stuttering out a few confused noises as Rouge stroked from his forehead back to his spines.

“Wh… Why do you keep doing that?” he demanded weakly.

“Because you enjoy it.”

“Sh-Shut up!”

Rouge didn’t respond, but her hand kept gently patting him, and Shadow seemed to melt at the kind touch. She wondered if he ever had something like this, someone to show him physical kindness and camaraderie, if he really was a lost and confused boy with no one to look out for him. If he never had a… a…

_“Big Sister Rouge…”_

Rouge closed her eyes as the pain returned in full, and she bit back the urge to smack herself for indulging such a stupid idea. She was no one’s sister anymore, big or otherwise. She was on her own, with a mission to fulfil and--

“Why did you stop?”

Rouge hadn’t noticed that her movements had ceased when her thoughts had overcame her, but Shadow’s vulnerable little whisper made her instinctively start up again.

_I’m an idiot. The biggest idiot in the world. I’m sorry, Maria, I’m sorry that I keep getting in my own way. I still remember what I promised you. I swear I haven’t given up yet._

The sound of metal creaking brought the two of them back to reality, and Shadow jumped as far away from Rouge as possible before Ivo walked in, seeming no worse for wear. “Everything is ready to go!” he announced.

“It is?” Shadow said, sounding surprised. “Are you sure? We’ve only got six Chaos Emeralds.”

“That’s more than enough for the demonstration,” Rouge replied, voice returning to its businesslike monotone as she made her way towards the doctor. “So let’s get this show on the road.”

“Someone’s eager,” she heard Shadow mutter from behind, but she decided not to pay attention. She had already given him too much.

She had made a promise to Maria long before she had met Shadow, and this demonstration was _**crucial.**_

* * *

From her spot by the cannon’s control system, Rouge watched Ivo’s announcement with cold anticipation. As he pontificated, declaring himself the ruler of a new empire, Rouge waited for her cue to start the cannon, her fingers itching to poke at the console, change the coordinates, and shoot directly at the world below them.

But she refrained, and when it was her turn to act, she charged up the cannon, and once it was ready to go, she fired it.

With her screen taken up by Ivo’s broadcast, she didn’t see when the beam of energy collided with the moon, but a loud cackle from the Professor’s grandson told her that the demonstration had been a success. She tuned out the last of his speech, the part where he made his demands and started the countdown process, and looked back at the control panel, eyes roving over the six gems embedded in the core.

“Soon,” she murmured, before turning away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: Shadow locates the last emerald and contemplates his next move.


	9. Chapter 9

Shadow didn’t like this anymore.

It was one thing to joke around about taking over the world and conquering the lands and reaping the treasures and spoils, but seeing the moon get hit with a laser? And knowing that this laser wasn’t even at full power yet?

This was going too far for his comfort. He needed to get those emeralds and get out of there as soon as he could. There were just a few things that stopped him.

One: there was still one more emerald out there. Eggman was going to send out whoever and whatever he could spare to snatch it up, and he wasn’t going to skimp on security for the six they had. If Shadow was going to take his gems and run, he was running with the full set.

Two: the emeralds they already had might trip off some kind of alarm if Shadow took even just one of them out of the core. He’d be caught before he reached the transporter, unless he managed the best footwork of his life.

And three: …

...what about Rouge?

Shadow frowned. He didn’t know what was up with that bat. She acted so hot and cold, going from holding him at arm’s length and ignoring and dismissing him, to complimenting him and patting his head, only to walk away from him, not looking back, as she went to go shoot highly-concentrated beams of energy at the moon.

What the  _ fuck _ was even going  _ on _ in that head of hers?

Shadow couldn’t read her, and it made him uneasy. It made him even  _ more _ uneasy that he still liked her despite that. That he wanted to keep her around. He wanted to soak up the fleeting moments of affection that she offered to him, wanted to believe that she really did have a soft spot for him, wanted to believe that maybe, if it came down to it, she would save him if he was ever in danger again.

All he wanted was to have people care about him, and she… she might have cared. Cared enough to save him, and not just the emeralds. Cared enough to talk to him, not just ignore him. Cared enough to comfort him, to pat his head, like a sibling might have done to an annoying little brother who drove her up the wall but she still liked at the end of the day.

Shadow wanted to slap himself for being so pathetic, but he couldn’t help it. Was it really so wrong to hope for that? To want that care and protectiveness from someone else, when all he knew growing up was that the world was ready to chew him up and spit him out unless he could prove that he was worth a damn? To just be  _ wanted, _ in a new kind of way, not by a watchlist or an angry jeweller or for a race and a little bit of banter from a handsome rival who never stuck around for very long?

Nothing Shadow had ever done in his life had worked in the way he had hoped. Becoming a renowned thief and surrounding himself with beauty had made his life better but not good. Boasting and putting on airs had made him more charismatic but got him no friends. And now, things were tentatively putting themselves together in a way he hadn’t expected, and he didn’t know how to keep it all in place. Not when he still wanted those emeralds. Not when his initial motive might lead to destroying the fragile bond he had made.

And if Rouge was truly set on destroying the planet, not just wielding that cannon for show, then… then Shadow would have to give up on her, and the thought hurt him  _ so much more _ than it should have.

His head still swam with his dilemma as he walked into the central control room, but the sight of Eggman pacing angrily around and slamming his fist against any flat surface he could find brought him back into the present.

“Why are you so upset?” he asked, glancing from the doctor over to Rouge, who was standing nearby with her arms crossed. She didn’t look too pleased either, but then again, she usually looked like that. “You really did something impressive and managed to create complete havoc on the whole planet! Does this now mean we control the planet and can do as we choose?” He couldn’t help but let a teasing, mocking tone slip into his speech, and it seemed that Eggman caught on to it, because he looked seconds away from snapping at him.

Instead, Rouge spoke up. “At this rate, the cannon will take too much time to charge up. If you want to unleash its full potential, you’ll need all seven Chaos Emeralds.”

She had completely ignored him.  _ Ouch. _

“Where in the world have you been?” Eggman demanded, ignoring Rouge in turn to focus on Shadow. Not exactly what he wanted out of this whole exchange, but at least  _ someone _ was giving him the time of day.

“Chill out, I’ve been doing my own work,” he replied, waving away the question with a lazy flick of the hand. “And what’s been going on here? Something happen?”

“Our threats fell on deaf ears,” Rouge replied, and Shadow felt a surge of relief that she was acknowledging him again.

“So now you’re throwing a tantrum like a little kid?” he taunted, watching Eggman’s face contort in rage. He let out a chuckle. “How totally embarrassing!”

The doctor smacked his fist against the console, causing Shadow to jump in surprise. Maybe he had overdone it a little. “And what about your end of the bargain, thief boy?” he asked, pointing a finger at him. “What about that last Chaos Emerald? We had a deal, right? So, where is my emerald?”

“Calm the hell down.” Shadow rolled his eyes, searching around his person. “Didn’t I tell you I’ve been doing my end of the work? And after all the trouble I went through to print this out for you…” He took out a newspaper clipping, still recent news, and waved it in the doctor’s face. Clear and right smack in the middle of the page was an image of a Chaos Emerald, the final one of the set.

“Why didn’t you show me this before?” Eggman demanded, tearing the clipping from Shadow’s hands, and the hedgehog huffed, putting his hands on his hips.

“Because we were on an island? That was going to explode? Get your priorities straight, I’m here to give intel when it’s needed, not when we’re about to be blown sky-high.”

Eggman sent him a dry glare before reading the article in earnest. “Station Square saved from a life-threatening missile attack. The city has awarded its famed prize to the boy who saved Station Square. Miles “Tails” Prower was given the Chaos Emerald as a testament of his heroic deed at a ceremony held at city hall… Hrrrmph!” He lifted his head, already seeming in a better mood. “This makes things a whole lot easier! Hurry, go back to Earth and find them fast! I want that Chaos Emerald!”

With that, the doctor strode off, leaving Shadow behind with Rouge.

“Can you believe that guy?” Shadow griped, but Rouge was looking elsewhere, lost in thought. She murmured something under her breath, something that sounded a lot like ‘soon’, before walking past Shadow, not even sparing a passing glance.

Shadow’s heart twisted in pain, and he stepped away, moving to the console, resting his hands on the metal. He was an idiot. An idiot for thinking that the smallest bit of decency was somehow a gateway into a closer bond. Rouge didn’t care about him. Rouge didn’t--

A hand landed on his shoulder, and Shadow nearly jumped out of his skin, whirling around to find Rouge looking puzzled at his reaction. “I’ll go down to find the last emerald,” she said. “I want you to stay up here. If something goes wrong with the technology, you can let us know and do some maintenance. I saw that you’re good with it.”

_...She noticed that? _

“You’ve also had a shocking experience. You still seem to be processing that.”

Shadow frowned, turning his head away. “So I’ll just slow you down, then?”

“...Did you not hear a word I just said?”

Rouge sounded so disappointed, and Shadow scrambled to fix it before she could run off and the guilt ate him alive for being so callous at her concern.

_ Her concern! She was concerned about him! _

“No, I did! I just…” He clenched his fists, hating how he couldn’t just put it into words without sounding whiny or pathetic or stupid. “...I’ll make sure everything’s in perfect condition for when you get back.”

Was it a trick of the light, or did Rouge’s face soften? Was he still entertaining the idea that she could care about him, or was this real?

The hand on his shoulder squeezed before letting go, and as Rouge turned away, Shadow heard her say, “About what I said earlier… you did a good job before, and finding this last emerald for us… you’ve been a great help. Thank you, Shadow.”

With that, she left, and Shadow felt more elated than he’d felt in ages, because Rouge had thanked him! Rouge saw his value, his worth, and acknowledged it! He turned back to the console, eyes roving over the gems that glittered therein, and though he was tempted, he didn’t even try to touch them.

He would do as she asked. He would stand guard, make sure everything was fully functional, and when push came to shove and everyone started to push their own agendas…

...maybe he would be able to convince Rouge to work with him instead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: Rouge and Eggman tail Tails, and Shadow does a little bit of research.


	10. Chapter 10

Outside of Central City, in a canyon with odd pumpkin carvings, Rouge kept tailing the strange blue plane. She could sense the chaos energy coming from it; Shadow had been right about the final emerald.

Rouge was glad, for more than one reason.

She tailed the aircraft, grinding on rails that crisscrossed the hills and using her wings for balance. She could have flown, but there was something exhilarating about jumping from rail to rail, accelerating to dizzying speeds before jumping to incredible heights. It appealed to something within her, something hidden and repressed, perhaps buried deep in the sea of memories she hadn’t uncovered yet, or maybe it was something she had simply never experienced before.

Rouge frowned, some of her elation at her fun deflating. The gaps in her memories had become more worrying lately, as things started to make less and less sense when grouped together.

Gerald had wanted to help the earth? By making weapons of mass destruction?

Rouge had been created to destroy, but also for Maria’s sake? How? What secrets were hidden behind her creation?

Maria had thought the world so beautiful 一 and it was, as much as Rouge hated to admit it 一 and yet she cursed its people with her dying breath, betrayed beyond measure?

Sometimes Rouge could make a sensible line of logic, connecting all the dots and filling in the blanks. Sometimes she couldn’t convince herself.

Sometimes she wondered if these memories were even real, but they  _ had _ to be. Anything that brought up emotions that strongly  _ had _ to be real.

Right?

She stopped on a plateau, watching the plane pass by and sensing the chaos energy grow in proximity before fading. She squinted against the sunlight, looking to the horizon, and figured out the fox’s plan in an instant; after all, there was only one thing of note in that direction. She tapped into her headset, tuning into her link with Ivo.

“Doctor,” she reported, “they’re heading directly toward us. What should we do?”

_ “Just sit tight,”  _ came the orders, and Rouge frowned again. She hadn’t gone down to the planet without an emerald to sit around and do nothing. They were on a time limit, weren’t they? But before she could point this out to Ivo, he continued.  _ “I’ve got them on radar. There’s no way they can get away! I don’t know what they are planning, but I’ll be sure to give them a warm welcome.” _

The way he sounded when the transmission ended promised a threat, and Rouge supposed that she was pacified enough. If they brought the emerald to them, it would have rendered her trip down to Earth rather moot, save for the fun little chase she had been able to do across the canyon. She still preferred to get the emerald now, incapacitate anyone who wanted to disturb the plan  _ before _ they got onto the ARK, and see everything through without interruptions, but it seemed as though Ivo had a personal grudge against these people.

Fine. He could have this one little thing, as a treat. She would grant one small hurrah for Professor Gerald’s other grandchild before Rouge destroyed the world he wanted to conquer. He would be angry with her, but Maria’s promise convinced Rouge to stay on her path. Perhaps Ivo would be consoled in time, and find enjoyment in rebuilding the broken world, filling it with the robots he so loved.

Rouge sighed, rubbing at her arm where the insignia lay. It was happening. It was really happening.

_ So why wasn’t she happy about it? _

* * *

Eggman stood by in his pyramid base, his eyes and ears peeled for any sign of those pesky kids. He had done his calculations after Rouge had updated him, and he figured there were two ways that this could go.

Either they got to the ARK, or they didn’t. If he beat them here, took their emerald, and sabotaged the shuttlecraft without leading anyone to the transporter room, then the plan could continue without a single obstacle. If they did end up getting onto the ARK, then it was just a matter of shooting fish in a barrel before they did too much damage.

No matter the outcome, he was practically guaranteed a win, but that wouldn’t stop him from making things as difficult as possible for Sonic to deal with.

Loud noises and high-pitched cheering steered him in the right direction, and sure enough, it sounded like a gaggle of those annoying brats hidden behind the stone doors. “You little thieves!” he snapped, silencing their cheers in an instant. “Did you really think you could get out of here alive?” 

The door slid open, while Eggman rested his arms on the front of his mech, giving the kids a small wave and he came into view. He mentally applauded himself on the dramatic entrance and the look of shock on three out of four faces.

Sonic, predictably, went with the flow. “Come and get some, Eggman!” he taunted.

“Sonic!” Tails cried, looking to the hedgehog in panic, but Sonic just swiped at his nose and grinned at him.

“Just leave it to me.”

“This time, I’ll take your lives as well as the Chaos Emerald!” Eggman threatened, pulling the attention back to him. Then, with a dramatic wave of the arm, he spoke loudly enough that his voice echoed off of the walls of the chamber. “I call on you to destroy these pests. Come out, my servant!”

At his beckoning, a massive golem rose from below the walkways, restrained and mechanized by a device attached to his head. It was so large and imposing that even cool-headed Sonic gaped at it in shock. Eggman laughed in glee; finally, the time had come to be rid of these nuisances once and for all!

“Now go, and squash that blue hedgehog!”

* * *

Rouge kept a steady pace toward the pyramid base, but stopped in her tracks when she saw the top of the structure open.

“What in the world…?”

She was even more taken aback as a space shuttle shot from the newly-formed opening, and her fingers fumbled as she reactivated her headset.

“Doctor? Has something happened?”

There was a loud blare of interference which had Rouge wincing as it collided with her sensitive ears, followed by static and garbled speech. “Doctor?” she repeated, feeling worry flare up in her despite her best efforts.

_ “...unexpected oversight… on the shuttle… matter…” _

Rouge took a deep breath. He was okay. It relieved her more than it should have.

“The line is still breaking up. One more time, please.”

There was another blast of ear-shattering interference, followed by several seconds of static before everything quieted down.  _ “There… that should do the trick. Can you hear me clearly now?” _

“Yes.”

_ “Good. As I said, there was an oversight on my part. Sonic escaped my Egg Golem and turned it against me, then got onto the shuttle with his friends.” _

So Sonic had made it off of Prison Island in one piece. Rouge’s mouth twitched upward before she remembered that this would only make things more difficult.

_ “I’ve sustained a few minor injuries,” _ Ivo continued, bringing her back from her thoughts,  _ “and some damaged equipment, as you’ve no doubt heard. Get here as soon as you can; we’ll need to transport up to the ARK as soon as possible! There’s only so much Shadow can do on his own before our plan is in jeopardy.” _

“I’m on my way,” Rouge replied, already dashing across the sand. A crackling in her ear told her that Ivo had switched channels, and Rouge guessed that he was updating Shadow on the situation at hand. Unease gripped at her gut as she considered what might happen next.

Shadow was alone up on the ARK. If push came to shove, would he fight back? Would he get hurt?

Or would he do the logical thing, and try to join the winning side? Especially with an emerald coming right to him?

Rouge grit her teeth, pushing herself to run faster. She hated this. She hated that Ivo reminded her of Professor Gerald and that his injuries concerned her. She hated that she was happy that Sonic was alive. She hated that she was preoccupied by Shadow’s well-being and the unfortunate realization that she didn’t entirely trust him. How could she? They had known each other for only a day.

_ So why did a possibility of him betraying her hurt so badly? _

* * *

Up in the central control room, Shadow’s communicator crackled to life and Eggman’s voice brought him away from gazing longingly at the beautiful, glittery gems that lay within the cannon’s core.

_ “Shadow? Are you there? Emergency update!” _

Blue-lined eyes narrowed in concern. An emergency? Did something happen to the emerald? To Rouge? Shadow lifted his communicator and cleared his throat, making sure he sounded sufficiently calm before he answered.

“Hi Doctor, how’s it going?”

_ “Badly. Sonic, Tails, Knuckles and Amy have escaped with the emerald.” _

“What?” Shadow screeched, losing his cool immediately. “What do you _mean_ they escaped? I stay up here because you both tell me, ‘oh, don’t worry Shadow, we can handle this’, and then you come and tell me that--”

_ “Zip it,” _ Eggman growled, and Shadow reluctantly held back the rest of his tirade.  _ “Time is of the essence here. They’ve made off with a rocket of mine, so they won’t be transporting. That buys you a little bit of time before Rouge and I reconvene and go up to assist. They have the emerald with them; if at all possible, I need you to take it from them. Can you do that?” _

“Have you forgotten who you’re talking to?” Shadow bragged. “I’ll find a way.”

An emerald coming right to him? This reeked of opportunity, and Shadow was already spinning a new plan in his head as he kept talking.

“Do you think you can tell me the password for the central control computer?”

_ “Why do you need it?”  _ Eggman didn't sound pleased.

Shadow clicked his tongue. “So distrustful! It really brings a guy down, you know. I just wanted to keep track of the camera feeds, let you know when they arrive, and if they happen to split up, I can direct you and Rouge to the ones I haven’t gone after yet… but I can’t check the feeds without the password.”

The line was silent for several seconds. Shadow tried to think of any other excuses he could make, before the quiet, gruff voice of Doctor Eggman came up again.

_ “Maria. M-A-R-I-A. Don’t fail me.” _

With that, the line went dead, and Shadow grinned from ear to ear. Tricking the old doctor had been all too easy!

He zipped over to the console, typing in the password. There was something strange about it; a simple name, no special characters, no numbers… something about it seemed familiar, too. Like he had heard it spoken, or maybe whispered, but he couldn’t place when or by whom.

As the computer started up, he supposed it didn’t matter all that much.

“Let’s see here,” he murmured, searching around. The first thing he did was pull up the camera feeds; it was a good idea, after all, to make sure he knew when everyone was arriving. A quick survey said that the ARK was still empty, as expected.

Then he started digging around, searching for information about the Eclipse Cannon. He needed to find any intel that could help him identify and disable any alarm systems that would prevent him from taking the Chaos Emeralds.

A file showed up on the screen, and Shadow paused, his fingers suspended above the keys.

It was the insignia. The one on Rouge’s jumpsuit. The one that had led him to the ARK.

Curiosity ate at him and urged him to click on it. Inside the file were multiple subsections, but his eyes shot immediately to one in particular.

“What’s this? 'Research Project Rouge, the Ultimate Lifeform'…”

A sense of unease fell on him as he saw the words ‘research project’ next to Rouge’s name. The implications that came from the title alone were enough to fill him with a terrible sense of doubt and trepidation.

Maybe… maybe there was more to Rouge than he understood.

He clicked on the file, and began to read.

* * *

“Wh… What is this?” Shadow shrieked, stepping back from the screen. His eyes took in the image before him, reread every line, but it was the same. Panic settled over him, mixing with shock and cold fear into an icy shower of distrust.

He was so upset that he almost missed the sight of his favorite blue hedgehog on the camera feed.

Shadow gave himself a light slap to the face, forcing himself to remain calm and stay on task. He could worry about Rouge later, though he still felt seconds away from screaming when he remembered what was on file. He took a deep breath and re-examined the cameras.

Sonic wasn’t alone. Shadow could also see Tails piloting his mechanized airplane and Amy bouncing along with the two of them.

On another camera, he saw a flash of red barrel down a different hallway, and frowned as he remembered Eggman mentioning Knuckles was there too.

So now came Shadow’s dilemma. Did he go after Sonic’s group of three, where the last emerald was most likely to be, and have to deal with a three-against-one battle, possibly with Sonic looking at him in disappointment while Amy pulled no punches with her hammer? Or did he go after the lone echidna and take what was rightfully his?

The answer was obvious. The Master Emerald shards still hidden on his person seemed to agree with him as he pulled out his communicator.

“Doctor, come in. It’s Shadow.”

_ “Have they arrived?” _

“They have, and just as I thought, they’ve split up. Are you coming up soon?”

_ “Rouge and I are heading to the transporter room as we speak,”  _ Eggman replied, and Shadow felt a sharp stab of unease at the bat’s name. _ “We should be up there in two minutes.” _

“Good. In that case, once you’re up, head to the observation deck on the way to the reactor. I can handle the echidna on my own, but unarmed in a three-on-one fight against the rest? No thank you.”

_ “I suppose that’s fair. Well done Shadow! We’ll rendezvous at the cannon once we’ve finished our opponents off.” _

“Y-Yeah, don’t mention it,” the hedgehog responded weakly, still not used to congratulations. He knew that, once he absconded with the Master Emerald and all the Chaos Emeralds too, he wouldn’t be getting any more of those from Eggman.

He was going to miss it, but… this was how it had to be.

He switched off his communicator, checked the camera one more time, and made his way to the airlock to the surface of the ARK. He had an echidna to taunt and a treasure to take.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: Eggman notices two emeralds on his radar, and Shadow gets his rematch for the Master Emerald with Knuckles.


	11. Chapter 11

Rouge flew low to the ground alongside Ivo as they made their way to the transporter room. The doctor, thankfully, didn’t sustain any major injuries. Unlike Maria, he seemed to be made of steel, staying resilient with a remarkable constitution.

It both relieved her and filled her with bitterness.

Once they reached the room, the doctor leapt out of his mech and made his way to the console, tapping away at the keys and muttering under his breath. Rouge stayed back, looking over the screen, giving her wings one final flap before relaxing them at her back. A few programs flickered to life, and then an image of an empty hallway came into view.

Ah. Ivo was double-checking the camera feeds.

“He said the observation deck… which should be around…”

The image changed a couple of times before the sight of Sonic, a fox in a walking plane, and the pink hedgehog who had accidentally embraced Shadow on the island flashed before their eyes. It seemed as though the group was, indeed, heading toward the reactor.

“There they are,” Ivo murmured, crossing his arms. “And no Knuckles in sight… I wonder where Shadow chased him off to?”

Rouge had no response, so she stayed silent.

The doctor switched displays to a map of the ARK, with the stern in a bird’s eye view. A few sections on the colony’s starboard side were lit up, and Ivo seemed to think that was very interesting indeed.

“This is strange… It’s showing energy readings from two separate Chaos Emeralds!” With a huff, one of his hands raised to fiddle with his moustache, and Rouge puzzled over this new bit of information. _How could there be eight emeralds?_

But it seemed Ivo had an answer ready. “Did they really think they could trick me with that fake emerald?” he scoffed, and Rouge blinked in surprise. How did they manage to find or create a fake Chaos Emerald? These kids couldn't be that old at all, so how could they pull something like that off?  For the first time since the mission began, Rouge was beginning to feel out of her depth. She hadn’t anticipated a fake emerald, and who knew what other tricks their uninvited guests had up their sleeves. She turned away from the screen, taking a few steps, determined to clear her head and refocus on the task before her. It wouldn’t do to start doubting herself now.

She was the Ultimate Lifeform. She needed to start acting like it.

“Wait, Rouge!” Ivo called after her, halting her footsteps. “I’m the one who should be telling them the end is near, not you!”

Rouge glanced at her feet; she had almost stepped onto the transporter platform. It seemed as though Ivo thought she was ready to go and make quick work of the intruders.

Rouge wished that had been the case.

“Now is the time to end this long, drawn-out battle and mark myself a place in history as the ultimate genius!” Ivo continued as the bat stepped away from the transporter. In turn, the doctor made his way back into his mech, and the loud, heavy footfalls clamored in the small, quiet room as he stepped onto the transporter. “If something happens to me, I’m counting on you to finish the job!”

The bat swallowed and nodded, still not saying a word. This was it. This was the final obstacle before she could grant Maria’s dying wish. She couldn’t stop now.

“Hurry! The moment for attack has come! It’s now or never!”

With that, Ivo transported himself up to the colony, leaving Rouge behind to observe the feeds and plan her backup strategy.

* * *

On the surface of the colony, Shadow marvelled at the technology keeping him firmly on the ground, as well as that which allowed him to breathe. He kicked at the rocky surface, watching a small cloud of dust rise and then settle back down, and whispered an amazed ‘wow’ under his breath. How did such incredible technology _exist_ as far back as fifty years ago? Just how much advanced tech existed that was kept hidden from him and everyone else? 

A noise made his ears perk up, and he looked above to see a gliding red figure grab a green shard out of the air. Shadow’s mouth dropped open as he saw Knuckles the Echidna keep running and jumping around, scaling large steel beams and high platforms, fiercely resolute in his quest to reassemble that emerald…

**_Did he seriously punch it so hard that he sent some pieces into orbit?!_ **

Shadow shook his head, banishing the thought from his mind. The _last_ thing he needed was to start admiring the knucklehead’s strength, and then start comparing it to his own lackluster force, and then go down the rabbit hole of remembering that there wasn’t many special things about him, and--

And that meant that he would have to get that emerald! It would be his greatest prize, and even greater proof of his excellence! Shadow the Hedgehog would go down in history as the one who reclaimed an ancient echidna treasure!

_ Maybe then… Maybe then he would stop feeling so terrible all the time. _

_ Maybe people would like him. _

Shadow growled, bearing his teeth, in an effort to refocus himself and stop wallowing in that stupid, pointless, disgusting self-pity. He was a pro, damn it! Cool as cool can be! And he was about to prove it!

With that in mind, he started up his shoes and shot up one of the beams, coming to a stop in front of Knuckles, who blinked hard in surprise.

“Shadow? What are you doing here?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Shadow drawled, smoothing back his spines. “I’m here to pick up the rest of my emerald. How kind of you to find those pieces for me.”

“This again?” Knuckles groaned. “For the last time, this isn’t just another forgotten run-of-the-mill treasure you can take! This is my history, my legacy, and I can’t let anyone steal it!”

“Blah blah blah.” Shadow rolled his eyes and raised a hand, clapping his fingers to his thumb in a parody of a mouth yapping on and on. “History’s in the past, Knuckles, over and done with. That’s why it’s called ‘history’. Get with the times already.” He smirked, winking at his rival, who reddened at the attention. “Maybe then you’ll find something better than a lonely island with a big rock?”

Knuckles’ face twisted in rage, and it was almost enough to keep Shadow’s mind off of his own astounding hypocrisy. 

“Talking to you is a waste of time,” Knuckles growled, words that put Shadow off more than anything else. The echidna hunched over, fists at the ready, and Shadow knew that a fight was inevitable. He sighed, resting one hand on his hip.

He hated fighting Knuckles. As much as he would rather eat a live scorpion than admit it, just one good punch from the echidna could put him down for the count. Not to mention, the guy was built like a truck, and sturdy like one, too. As usual, he would have to outmaneuver him, which would be a challenge on this high, thin terrain. If he led him down onto lower ground, he would have more room to do some fancy footwork. It was his best option, and so he took out a shard of the Master Emerald and swung it in front of his face as a taunt.

“Fine then. You want these? Come and get ‘em.”

With that, he backflipped off of the beam, landing gracefully on his feet with a few rocket-powered thrusts from his shoes. Sure enough, Knuckles had leapt after him, gliding down with ease and a look of cold resolve in his eyes.  The first punch came whistling through the air, but Shadow was quick to dodge it. Then the next, and the next, and the next. This was the other annoying thing about fighting Knuckles; the guy just never tired out! Shadow could run circles around him with no problem, but when it came to a test of stamina, Knuckles still had him beat. The only way to win against him was to outsmart him or overwhelm him, but unfortunately, no bright ideas were coming to Shadow at that moment.

_ I should have come up with a plan, _ he thought as he ducked under one particularly punishing punch. Unfortunately, he didn’t have much time to plan after checking the feeds and reading those notes about… Rouge…

The next punch came too close to comfort, and Shadow growled, hating how he was getting stuck in his head when he needed to be in the moment. This was his only shot, and he was blowing it!

No more thoughts about Rouge. No more thoughts about how he kept screwing up. No more comparing himself to Knuckles, and Sonic, and everyone else who had talents and friends and--

The ground opened up below him, and Shadow dashed up a beam onto a thin platform before he could fall. Glancing down, he saw the metal floors split apart to reveal a pool of fiery lava.

**_Why the actual fuck was there lava on a space colony?!_ **

But it was no joke; already the heat was rising, sweltering against Shadow’s face, making his eyes water and sweat pool below his fur. He lifted his head, feeling the air around him cool, but unfortunately, right across from him on the beam was Knuckles, panting lightly after his climb up. Shadow was at the worst disadvantage now, and frustration boiled over until he couldn’t keep it in anymore.

“Stop fucking around, and give me back my emerald!” he yelled, while Knuckles yelled back the same, albeit with less colorful language.

“I’ve had it with you!” Shadow thundered, clenching his hands into fists. “No matter what trouble I go through, you just won’t give up, even though I’ve proven more than once that I deserve that emerald more than you!”

“No one  _ deserves _ it!” Knuckles protested. “It’s a piece of my culture!”

“Yeah yeah, your birthright. Big fuckin’ whoop. So you inherited the thing, it doesn’t mean you’ve earned it!” Shadow snapped back, hating every word that slipped through his lips but refusing to back down. “I’ve done so much to prove myself, but you don’t listen! Nobody listens! Nobody cares because all anyone thinks about is what they want and what they can do with what they’re born with!”

The anger was fading from Knuckles’ stance, replacing itself with confusion. “What are you talking about?”

“I was born with nothing!” Shadow screeched. “Nothing at all! I’ve had to do everything I could for every last crumb, and I’m done hearing shit about ‘heirlooms’ and ‘history’. Fuck those! Toss it all into the trash! All that matters is right now! That’s all that ever mattered!” 

He stomped his foot, partly for effect and partly because he was so angry with himself, with Knuckles, with everyone… but his foot missed the mark, catching on the edge of the beam. Shadow felt his stomach swoop upward into his chest and his heart stop as he lost his balance and plummeted into the burning air, unable to save himself.

_ I’m going to die? _

_ I’m going to die… _

Shadow closed his eyes, indignant fury and defeat battling in him until water formed at the corners of his eyes. Of course. Of course this would be how it ends. He would die as he lived.

**Just another piece of garbage.**

Then something wrapped around his wrist, and his arm felt like it was going to pop out of its socket, and he wasn’t falling anymore. Shadow’s eyes blinked open, tears dropping embarrassingly onto his cheeks, revealing a blurry red figure hanging from the beam, the last thing separating him from certain doom.

Shadow closed his eyes again, face twisting in pain as he realized that Knuckles had saved him.

He would almost rather die.

But he was pulled back up onto the beam, steadied by two strong hands, until he smacked them away. “Don’t touch me,” he snarled, earning himself an exasperated sigh in return.

“You don’t have a single grateful bone in your body,” Knuckles muttered. “Besides, I was saving the Master Emerald, not you.”

Chaos, he might as well have just held him in place and punched him, and even  _ that _ would have hurt less. The tears made a comeback, welling up until they fell with no care for dignity, and Shadow knew that no matter what he did, how clever he acted, how good he looked, how confidently he portrayed himself…

...he would _always_ be  garbage.

“...Are you crying?”

Knuckles sounded far away, maybe uncomfortable, maybe disgusted, and Shadow couldn’t bear to be around him anymore. He took out his three shards of precious gemstone, worth more than his life, and thrust them at the echidna with as much vitriol as he could muster.

“There! Take them, and fuck you!”

With that, Shadow sprinted away, down the beams onto solid ground, away from the lava pit, wiping his eyes. He needed to get away, needed to get far away before he realized what he had done and regretted everything all over again.

Knuckles didn’t follow.

Shadow didn’t expect him to.

_ It hurt, anyway. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: Eggman threatens the safety of multiple children and Sonic gets the worst of it.


	12. Chapter 12

“Darn! Why do they always leave a sweet, innocent girl like me alone?”

The voice of Amy Rose filtered through the hall, making Eggman pause. He strained his ears, listening for any hushed breaths or shuffling of feet, in case this was a ruse coined by Tails, but only a frustrated huff from the young girl registered.

If Amy truly was alone, Eggman figured that he could easily use her to bait out the others. Tails idolized Sonic in a way that meant that he would come running at a plea for help, and as for the blue blur himself… didn’t he have a thing for the girl? Yes, something like that. And even if he didn’t, there was no way he would let her get in harm’s way. Sonic was predictable in that way.

The doctor opened a compartment in his mech and took out a gun. He needed to keep this as simple and concise as possible; if the girl got at him with her hammer, everything would fall apart, but she wouldn’t be foolish enough to use it when staring down the barrel of a handgun. Once he had her, the rest would fall into place; all he had to do next was outsmart the others and pick out the fake emerald.

_That should be no problem for me,_ he thought with a grin, filling up the magazine and loading it in. _I’m the greatest genius there is!_

He considered jumping right in, but where was the _fun,_ the _theatrics,_ the _pizazz_ in that?

“Well well, young lady? Is there something I can help you with?” he asked, making sure his voice came through the door before he did. As it slid open to reveal that Amy was indeed alone, he was greeted with the sight of her already standing with her hammer at the ready, but her hands shook and her eyes went wide when she saw the gun pointed right at her head. “D-Doctor Eggman?” The look in her eyes turned into something akin to a trapped animal, which Eggman supposed she was. Right then, it seemed as though she was wondering if her hammer could deflect bullets.

_Was she foolish enough to find out?_

Amy bit her lip, glancing at her weapon and then back at his. The doctor had the advantage of range and firepower, and though Amy was plenty strong, she was no speed demon like Sonic or Shadow. He could knock her down before she came close enough to deal a blow on him. It seemed as though she realized this, because a look of bitter defeat registered in her eyes and her grip on her weapon slackened. Eggman grinned. Victory was his this time, and it tasted just as sweet as he imagined, but now he needed _more!_

“If you value your life, you _will_ tell me where Sonic and Tails are.”

* * *

The cannon’s core was unguarded. It struck Sonic as odd, but he didn’t have time to look a gift horse in the mouth. The fake emerald was in his hand, and six out of seven precious, powerful gems rested in the machine before him.

His gut twisted in unease. Blowing up a chunk of the moon was already five steps too far for his comfort, but knowing that his home would be next? It made his spines start to stand on end.

Why couldn’t old Egghead just chill out and stop trying to take over and make machines reign supreme?

His little brother’s voice came in through a burst of static, and Sonic lifted his communicator up to his ear, ready to carry out the fox’s plan. _“Okay Sonic, now put that emerald--”_

There was the sound of a cry and a scuffle, and then the voice of Doctor Eggman growled into his ear, making his eyes widen in shock. _“Tails, tell Sonic to meet you back at the research facility! Now!”_

_“Sonic!”_ Tails’ voice returned with a frantic edge to it. _“Amy is--”_

The last part of his sentence was muffled before it cut out abruptly. Sonic pressed the button on the side of his communicator, vaguely aware that his teeth were painfully clenched together before he started talking. “I didn’t get that, Tails. What happened to Amy?”

There was no response, and a sense of trepidation overcame the blue hero. That cry earlier… had that been Amy? Or Tails? Sonic supposed it didn’t really matter, because either way, his friends were in danger. He glanced back at the core, pulsing with energy, and back down at the fake emerald in his hand.

He could do it. Just… shove it in there and hope for the best. But Tails’ plan had been long and complicated, with big words that Sonic hadn’t been able to follow for the life of him 一 he really regretted giving Tails that thesaurus nowadays 一 and there were probably crucial instructions on what to do after he put it in and…

Screw it. He had 45 minutes before this thing was set to fire again. He could rescue his friends and get the plan back in motion long before he ran out of time.

He put the emerald away and dashed from the core. His friends came first.

* * *

Things were tense in the research facility.

On one side, by the window, was Eggman with his gun still pointed at Amy’s head, while the girl clenched her fists and stared daggers at the ground, face twisted in fear and anger. Near the door, Tails sat in his own mech, his thumbs on the controls that he wouldn’t dare use. Not while Amy was still in obvious danger. Not when a missile attack could potentially shatter the window behind them and suck them all out into certain death.

Eggman couldn’t help but chuckle as he waited. All the cards were in his hand, and he was about to deal the final bluff. All Sonic had to do was show up.

And wouldn’t you know it, right on schedule, the blue hedgehog walked in, his eyes taking in everything, Tails, Amy, Eggman, the gun…

Oh how _fantastic_ this was going to be!

“Let’s take care of business first, shall we, Sonic?” the doctor suggested, keeping his tone light and sweet as honey. He needed to play this calmly. “Hand over the Chaos Emerald, _slowly,_ and then we’ll talk about your girlfriend.” An odd look passed over the hedgehog’s face, one that Eggman couldn’t read from so far away, so he tacked on a taunting little, “That is, if you _really_ care for her…”

That did the trick; if there was one thing Eggman enjoyed about Sonic’s incredible predictability, it was that he could always use his friends to his advantage. Eggman would _never_ be like that. He surrounded himself with robots, replaceable pawns, never providing such a weakness to exploit. Rouge was a living weapon. Shadow was a means to an end, and their partnership had an expiration date. Soon, Eggman would be alone at the top, where he always dreamed of being.

He saw Sonic pull out the emerald and stare at it for a moment. The hero's eyes flickered over to Tails, then back to him. His hand started sweating with anticipation.

“Put the emerald down right there, and back off,” he ordered, nodding at the center of the room.

And then Sonic did that annoying thing that he always did. That stupid smirk that would sometimes evolve into a grin.

That was almost _definitely_ the fake emerald in his hand.

“You’ve turned into a big-time villain, doctor!” Sonic’s voice sounded akin to mockery as he sauntered his way forward, and goodness, _who did he think he was fooling?_ Eggman thwarted the urge to scoff as the hedgehog walked up, stepping onto the platform in the middle of the room and crouching down to put the emerald on the floor.

**_Now!_ **

The doctor slammed a button, and a pod shot down from above, trapping his nemesis in a glass dome with the emerald still in his hand. The hedgehog blinked, his mouth opening in surprise and his hand reaching out, only to touch the reinforced glass.

Everyone seemed to be stunned. Sonic the Hedgehog had been caught.

Eggman finally let a grin of his own form as he broke the silence. _Just one more little bluff._ “You thought you could trick me with that fake emerald, didn’t you?” he accused softly. All Sonic had to do was make one slip of the tongue…

...yet to his utter delight, it was _Tails_ who triggered his trap!

“So… how did you know it wasn’t the real one?” The boy was looking at him in confusion, his forehead creasing as his brain tried to piece everything together, and it was absolutely _fantastic!_

“Tails!” Sonic cried out in horror, and that was just as golden.

The victorious doctor savored every word as it left his mouth, grinning like a shark. “Because you just told me, fox-boy.”

The priceless look of absolute mortification on Tails’ face was the cherry on the top, and it was still only going to get better!

“Now for a little space ride,” Eggman announced, with a small flourish of his free hand. “The capsule clears the colony, and BAM!” He raised the hand, closed it into a fist, and reopened it, making a soft explosion noise with his mouth as he did so, and the reality of the situation seemed to dawn on all three of the mobians at once.

Sonic kept a brave face, admirably enough. “I’m counting on you, Tails!” he announced, looking over at the horror-struck fox before turning forward again. “And Amy… take care of yourself.”

Eggman decided that was enough. He didn’t care to hear the cries and screams of Sonic’s teammates. He had finally won! He would be rid of that blue nuisance for good! “Farewell, Sonic the Hedgehog!” he taunted as he hit the EJECT button with his fist.

And just like that, the hero slipped away, shooting out of the colony, down, down, down, closer and closer to the planet’s atmosphere.

_“Sonic!”_ Amy cried out in frantic terror. **_“Sonic!!!”_ **

The explosion lit up the void between the ARK and the planet below the very next second, and for just one fleeting moment, Eggman felt almost… not _sad,_ exactly, but... disappointed? Maybe the first pangs of nostalgia? It was hard to tell with all the adrenaline still rushing through his veins.

“Farewell, Sonic… My admirable adversary.”

He would give him that, at least. An acknowledgement for the end of an era.

But right now, he had two grief-driven mobians to take care of, and a final emerald to secure.

His gun pointed back at Tails, while Amy broke down in front of the window, sobbing into her hands. “Now we have some unfinished business to take care of,” he claimed, his voice quieter than he had hoped.  _ Damn it, this was no time to be going soft! _ But all the same, he didn’t have the time, energy, or desire to set up more pods and shoot the others out, so he would have to settle for bargaining, in the hopes that Tails and Amy were too upset to do anything to encumber his plans any further. “If you give me the real emerald, I will release you both. You have my promise!”

Tails was staring blankly down at his controls. Multicolored lights from the panels flashed in his eyes, and for a while, that was the only thing even remotely resembling life in the fox, until his lips parted, with Sonic’s name slipping out from between them.

After that, it was a remarkable change; Eggman saw the boy’s eyes harden, still sad, still shocked, but focused beyond measure, and his voice grew strong as he spoke again. “Sonic asked me,  _ for the first time, _ to do something for him, and I won’t let him down.” Pointed canines bared in a snarl as Tails gripped his controls, eyes and weapons locked on to Eggman’s mech. “I won’t give up!”

The doctor growled under his breath, putting aside his gun and preparing his own machine for battle. It seemed as though this was still far from over.

* * *

In one of the observation rooms, Rouge looked out the window, arms crossed. She had decided to come up in case Ivo’s bluff was called and backup was needed, but as she saw the capsule eject and explode, it seemed as though it wasn’t necessary.

There was a heaviness that descended on her as she saw the pod get destroyed; she had hardly known Sonic, and she knew it was for the best, but all the same… She had seen so much potential in him, the same potential that she had. It had been a thread of sorts, connecting them in a way that she wouldn’t be able to find in another person, and to lose that was…

She looked away from the window. “I guess he was just a regular hedgehog after all…”

“What?”

Rouge jumped at the voice, whirling around to see Shadow standing in the doorway, eyes wide.

_How long had he been there? How had he managed to come up behind her without her noticing? Had she really been so deep in thought that she had missed his entrance?_

The bat’s mouth went dry as she saw the last reflected flickers of light from the explosion die in Shadow’s eyes.

“Rouge. Who was in that pod?”

Shadow's voice sounded faint, like he was only just holding on to the last threads of his self-control, and Rouge’s treacherous brain remembered Prison Island, how Shadow had rambled on and on about Sonic, about how he seemed to hold the other hedgehog in high esteem, about how he had dropped the Chaos Emeralds to the ground when he learned that Sonic had cared enough to mention him. _How could she tell him? How could she possibly--_

**“Rouge!”**

She had barely drawn in a breath before wild teal eyes were boring into her own, rapidly filling with tears, though they were already heavy-lidded and speckled with capillaries, as though Shadow had only just finished a crying session. Hands grabbed her shoulders, and fingers dug into the muscles and bones as though he was trying to crush her in his hands.

_How could she tell him?_

“TELL ME RIGHT NOW! **_WHO WAS IN THAT POD?!”_ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: Shadow makes every worst decision he could possibly make.


	13. Chapter 13

Outside the Space Colony ARK, Knuckles was having issues of his own. He almost regretted splitting up from the group as soon as the shuttle touched ground; finding his way back to the spacecraft was going to be a task in and of itself, given the labyrinthine corridors of the space colony, but at least he had the Master Emerald back in his hand, safe and secure.

Though… he could hardly say he was thrilled about the circumstances.

His search for a way back in continued, proving fruitless for far too long for his liking, until he sensed something odd. “I feel some strange energy,” he murmured to himself, following his senses, and somehow, they led him to an entry point.

Ah, good old instincts. They hadn’t failed him yet.

But the odd sensation grew stronger and stronger, rising in intensity until Knuckles felt his spines begin to rise, and then, right in front of the tunnel leading inside the compound, a blinding light shone, burning white-hot. Knuckles shielded his eyes and face, taking a few steps back. Was this a security measure? Some kind of way to freeze intruders in place or burn them where they stood?!

But no sooner had the chilling thought come to him that the light faded, and Knuckles was blinking rapidly, trying to restore his sight as quickly as he could. There was an object on the floor in front of him, one that hadn’t been there before. Large, and long, and blue, and…

_...Hold on… _

“Hey, Sonic!” the echidna called out, making his way forward as the blur started to take shape, with long, cerulean quills that started to become more defined by the second. One blue ear twitched, then a peach-colored arm bent and hoisted the body up, and then Sonic was standing unsteadily on his feet. Knuckles rushed to his side, offering solid support as the hedgehog’s legs trembled below him.

“Whoa…” Sonic groaned, leaning onto Knuckles’ shoulder with his full weight. The echidna barely budged under the force, but his face did heat up a little; he was still unused to having people in his personal space like this. “I wasn’t sure if I could pull that one off,” Sonic continued, sounding exhausted. “Somehow I managed to use the Chaos Control.”

“Chaos Control?” Knuckles echoed, racking his brain for any memory of a text or mural from his people that could shed some light on what was going on, but ultimately, he drew a blank.

His mind went even more blank when Sonic stumbled, grabbing on to him as though for dear life. “Are… you okay?” he asked, hesitantly putting one of his hands on Sonic’s waist to steady him.

“Yeah… Yeah I’m fine I just have to…”

Sonic took another step, stumbled again, and Knuckles decided that was enough. “Maybe you should sit down for a minute.” At Sonic’s look, he decided to appeal to his ego. “It’s not like you can’t make up for the lost time and then some.”

Sonic exhaled, seeming to deflate, and sat on the ground. “I’m worried about Tails and Amy,” he admitted. “I hate to ask, but could you help them? This is our last chance.”

“How do I help them?” Knuckles asked, still puzzling over Sonic’s abrupt appearance and dishevelled state.

“Save them from Eggman if they need help,” Sonic suggested, stretching out his legs. “Tell them I’m alive. That sort of thing.”

“What? Why would they think you were dead?!” Knuckles demanded, his confusion only growing.

“Getting shot out of an exploding space pod will do that to you,” Sonic replied airily, and Knuckles’ jaw went slack.

“I…  _ What?!” _

“Long story, no time.” Sonic was already trying to stand again, with better results. “And what about you, Knux? Found what you were looking for?”

The echidna crossed his arms. “I did, actually. The Master Emerald is back in one piece…” His voice trailed off as he wondered whether he should bring up what was bothering him, but Sonic’s ears flicked in his direction, briefly distracted.

“Sounds like there’s a ‘but’ coming up.”

Knuckles sighed, relenting. “But I had to get tangled up with Shadow for it to happen.”

“Shadow’s here, again?” Sonic frowned, looking down. “He keeps showing up in this plot… I don’t like it, it gives me a bad feeling.”

“Tell me about it,” Knuckles grumbled, looking away. He could still so clearly see those eyes, filled with a world of hurt, could still hear the acid in his tone, could feel the fury fueling his motions as the final pieces to the ancient puzzle were shoved into his arms… and the guilt started eating at him again.

Sonic smirked at his friend, misinterpreting his body language. “Still got it bad for him, huh?”

Knuckles tensed up, teeth baring as his face went red. “Sh-Shut up! That’s not… Sonic, I mean it! I…” He ground his teeth together, regretting having gone along with this line of conversation. “I might have really hurt him this time.”

Sonic’s smirk vanished, but he didn’t ask questions, and Knuckles was glad for it. Instead, the hedgehog took a deep breath in, getting back on his feet and pulling out the fake emerald, staring at it as though it contained an answer. “How do we stop the world from getting destroyed?” he asked, abruptly pulling Knuckles’ focus back into the bigger picture. “I got it! Before the cannon fires, I’ll slam dunk it in there!”

Just like that, the fire had returned to Sonic’s eyes, his objective clear as he started to dart away. “Come on! The others need your help, too!” he called back over his shoulder.

Knuckles stood there, his arm stretched out after the blue hero as Sonic ran away, ready to do what he had to do, before the echidna clenched his hand into a fist that he brought closer to his body. Once again, Sonic astounded him with his clear head, with his drive and his ability to keep focusing on what needed to happen. It wouldn't accomplish anything to keep dwelling on what happened with Shadow; he could only move on to what was next, and strive to do better at the next opportunity.

Help Tails and Amy. Tell them that Sonic was alive. He could do that. And if he ran into Shadow… maybe he could apologize? Tell him that he had spoken out in anger and hurt pride and scorn, and that he was sorry. Maybe tell him that Sonic was okay as well.

With that thought in mind, Knuckles started to leg it into the ARK, feeling a shudder as he imagined how catastrophic it would be if Amy, Tails, and Shadow _all_ believed in Sonic’s demise.

* * *

Eggman really hadn’t counted on Sonic’s loss to affect Tails quite in the way it did.

He had expected tears. He had expected emptiness. He had expected a broken will and a hopelessness that led to an easy victory.

But Tails had come at him with guns blazing, a ferocious gleam in his eye that chilled the doctor to the bone. The fox had charged forward, laser focused and furious, and it had caught him so off guard that the boy was able to outmaneuver him and finally overpower him.

Now, he was lying on the ground, head spinning, as the fox jumped out of his mech. Eggman half expected Tails to finish him off, especially with the state he was in, but the boy simply pulled out a communicator, switched it on, and in a soft, broken voice, whispered out a “Sonic… I did it.”

It seemed as though the broken spirit had come after all, but too little too late. The doctor’s head lolled to the side, and a faint yellow glimmer caught his eye.

_ Hold on a moment… Could that be…? _

His hand reached forward as a beeping noise echoed through the room, and Eggman’s hand grasped the final Chaos Emerald as Sonic the Hedgehog’s voice somehow filled the room.

_ “Awesome job, Tails!” _

“Sonic!” he heard the fox cry out, followed by a scream from the girl, but Eggman had no time to wonder how Sonic could still be alive. The final piece of the puzzle to victory was in his hand, and so long as the Eclipse Cannon fired, it didn’t matter if he got rid of those brats now, or later.

In the ensuing celebration, the doctor took his leave unnoticed, his heart pounding in his chest as he reached out to Rouge through his own communicator. 

It was time to finally end this.

* * *

Rouge flew at mach speed to keep in pace with Shadow as he raced through the hallways of the ARK, twisting and turning until they reached the central control room. The bat’s nerves were shot, and the sound of Shadow’s screams of anguish still rang in her ears like an echo that would never fade.

Shadow’s breathing was heavy as he approached the core, and at his sides, his hands kept clenching into fists and then unclenching, and his head tilted every which way, as though he was trying to figure out the best way to go about his plan.

“What are you trying to do?” Rouge asked, her voice quavering, because she already knew the answer, and what it meant, but she was still holding on to a foolish hope that maybe, just this one, logic would fail and things would work out like she had hoped.  


“Don’t play dumb with me!” Shadow snapped, shooting her a glare over his shoulder and obliterating any hope bat had left. His eyes, still wet and reddened and covered in blue smudges, held absolutely no mercy in them. “You know why I’m here! You know what I’m about! I'm taking these emeralds and getting the hell out of here!”

Rouge’s own face contorted into a grimace, and ruby red eyes glared at the floor. “I was hoping it wouldn’t have to come to this,” she hissed out, trying fruitlessly to stifle the horrendous feeling of betrayal welling up inside her.

_ Shadow wasn’t on her side. He never had been. She had been an idiot to let him in. _

“Well too  _ fucking _ bad!” Shadow raged, whirling around to face her properly. “Because you know what? This is literally the worst day of my life!  **Literally!”** He paired his exclamation with a swift, sharp kick to the console, and the old piece of machinery cluttered to life. “And I need  _ something! _ Even if that something is an incomplete set of emeralds, at least I won’t have to add ‘destroyed home’ to the shitlist below ‘shown up’, ‘lost everything’ and ‘Sonic is dead’!” The boy’s eyes drilled into hers, raw with untold pain and grief and rage that he had only scratched the surface of as he raged on.

_ So this was your plan from the very beginning… _ Rouge thought, feeling her energy begin to ebb. _ I knew it all along, but all the same, there came a point where I didn’t want to believe it…  _

“So, before your _stupid, mindless, idiotic_ scheme to blow up the world falls into place,” Shadow ranted on, each word landing like a knife in Rouge’s heart, “I’m just going to take what’s mine and get out of here, before the universe decides it’s time to take something else away from me!”

“You are one pathetic creature!” Rouge snapped back, finally pushed to a limit, and oh, the look on Shadow’s face was the dictionary definition of  **_enraged._ **

“Oh, and look who’s talking, you bio-engineered freak of nature!” he screamed back.

It was like a slap to the face; Rouge’s own anger flooded out of her in an instant, replacing itself with cold shock. She took a step backwards, mouth agape, and Shadow’s face twisted into a look of sadistic glee.

“What, you didn’t know?” he crooned, turning around to work at the computer console, searching through the files on it with effortless precision. “I made sure to do my homework on my fellow teammates, and what do you know! I found some  _ enlightening _ information.” The words sounded overly-sweet, and so much more _damaging_ than his screams could ever be. Rouge felt nothing but fear freezing her in place as Shadow’s fingers flew over the keys, seeking out one file in particular. “I found some results about the research project known as the Ultimate Lifeform,” Shadow continued, hitting one final key as the file popped up and…

_ What on earth was  _ **_that thing?_ **

Rouge’s mouth went dry as she saw an image load, right below a header proclaiming ‘Project Rouge: the Ultimate Lifeform’, but that wasn’t a picture of herself. Instead, she saw a massive lizard, eyes piercing even in a fuzzy black and white photograph. It was massive, easily filling the room it was in, and Rouge…

“So,” Shadow kept going, merciless, his hand resting on his hip as he faced her one more time. “If  _ this _ is the real Ultimate Lifeform, named Rouge…” He pointed at her, and Rouge felt like an impostor in her own head, in her own body, in… in…

_ Who am I? _

“...Then who the fuck are _you_ supposed to be?”

For a moment, both hedgehog and bat stared each other down, the hedgehog in furious vengeance, and the bat in mute horror.

“M-My memories,” Rouge finally uttered, only for Shadow to cut her off.

“What if they’re not real? You know, like everything else about you.”

Rouge started to tremble. _No. No that couldn’t be it! Those couldn’t be fake, or made up, or… Surely there was an explanation for all the gaps, for all the inconsistencies, and… and…_

The bat’s blood ran cold as all her worst fears seemed all but confirmed at Shadow’s malicious move against her. Was none of that truly real? Did Maria, Professor Gerald, all her thoughts and feelings… were they all just lies, conjured by a person who wasn’t who she thought she was? Did she plan on destroying an entire planet, all through falsified evidence and mistakes?

Had she, a being of logic, been fooled all this time?

Rouge’s breaths came quicker as panic set in. What if that was the case? What if Shadow was right. Then what? What was her next move? What was her point in existing? Who was she?  _ Who was she who was she who was she who was she who was-- _

A familiar spark of warmth distracted Rouge from her torment, a spike of chaos energy that brought a familiar figure to her mind’s eye, but she hardly had time to make sense of it before her headset crackled to life.

_ “This is Dr. Eggman, I have found all seven Chaos Emeralds!” _

Rouge’s breathing faltered. Too much was happening at once, and she didn’t know where to turn or who to look to. Her eyes seeked out Shadow’s, but the hedgehog sent her a look of such pure disgust that her stomach seized up and she had to turn away.

_ “Rouge! Someone is trying to get to the Eclipse Cannon! There’s not much time left before it fires again. Can you get over there?” _

She had to make a choice, there and now, about who she was and what she would do.

“...I will find them right away,” she responded, and from across the platform, Shadow scoffed as she switched her headset off.

“Do you actually believe you’re the real Rouge?” he sneered.

“I have to,” she replied, turning away from him.

“Even though your memories might be fake?”

**_Fake._ ** _ Fake fake fake fake fake. _

“Even…” Rouge swallowed, regaining control of herself. “Even if my memories aren’t real, it’s still me.” She took a breath, focusing on the energy spike she felt, and suddenly the world felt much less uncertain. “I’m still Rouge.”

She blinked, and a tear dropped from her eye. “And I will fulfil my promise to Maria. That’s the only thing that matters to me now.”

_ The only thing… The  _ **_one_ ** _ thing… _

_ Goodbye, Shadow. _

She started walking down the pathway, pausing at the halfway point. “Leave the emeralds alone if you want to live,” she warned, her voice hardening. “The fake is good enough for you.”

**_Fakefakefakefakefakefakefakefake._ **

“And…”

She didn’t have to say it. She didn’t have to tell him. She could have just left, right then and there, her no-longer-empty threat hanging in the air.

But she didn’t.

“In case you were wondering… that intruder that the doctor mentioned… I can sense him. It’s Sonic. It seems as though he survived.”

With that, Rouge dashed off, not ready or willing to see or hear Shadow’s reaction to her final message to him. As she flew away, with white-hot rage and betrayal burning up her soul, Rouge searched inside herself, digging deeper and deeper, frantic,  _ desperate, _ blindly seeking out the piece of her heart that Shadow the Hedgehog had managed to worm his way into until she found it, warm and soft and tender…

_...and killed it with no hesitation or mercy. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: Sonic and Rouge nyoom and no one expects the truth.


	14. Chapter 14

When he had been young, Shadow had seen many awful days. There had been days when he had passed out from hunger, and days when he had been soaked to the bone thanks to merciless, uncaring rainfall and a lack of a home. There had been days when he had screamed to the skies, desperate for someone to listen and to help.

He had been lonely, but that had been all he had known. It hurt, but it was a hurt he wore like his skin, something natural that he doubted he would ever be able to truly shed. Loneliness was woven into his DNA, solitude was the gift that he could never give away. Even as he grew and learned how to be independent, how to turn his life around, how to climb up and take what he wanted, it never left him, no matter how hard he tried. He could never understand it, this loneliness that seemed to be a part of him, nor could he comprehend the distance that always seemed to exist between him and others.

But he knew it. As sad as it was, he was used to it.

_ And this was thousands of times worse. _

If there had been spare parts around him that he could throw or crush between his hands, he would have done so in an instant. Red hot rage flared up to the sky, while stone cold betrayal threatened to pull him down into the abyss of space, and Shadow felt stretched beyond his limits, ready to tear, and there would be no putting himself back together.

_ How  _ **_dare_ ** _ she? How dare she  _ **_lie_ ** _ to him like that? _

Eyes squeezing shut, Shadow let out a scream and fell to his knees, slamming his fists to the ground. His spines raised as high as they could while his body trembled, and only dry sobs made his shoulders and back convulse; he had no tears left to shed.

He had burned his bridge with Rouge, he had had the upper hand for  _ once _ in his dreadful life, and still she had found a way to spit in his face from the other side.

_ “In case you were wondering… that intruder that the doctor mentioned… I can sense him. It’s Sonic. It seems as though he survived.” _

“BULLSHIT!” Shadow roared, pummelling his fists against the cold, unforgiving ground. “BULLSHIT _BULLSHIT **BULLSHIT!”**_

Rouge, who had saved his life and made it seem like he was cared for, had been the one to take the knife and twist it. Sonic was dead. Sonic was dead, and Rouge was dead to him. Shadow had to face the facts, he was destined to be alone.

He rose to his feet, the rage winning over and pushing him forward, his hands pulsing with pain, and staggered over to the core where the emeralds sat. Six out of seven. Always just shy of being complete.

He wasn’t meant to have everything.

_...But maybe this time? _

Shadow was about ready to slap himself for thinking that. He needed to cut his losses and take what he could. He knew that, the moment Eggman put the final emerald in, earth would be as good as gone. The chances of him claiming all the emeralds and still having a planet to go back to were as good as the chances that Sonic was still alive.

_...But what if Rouge hadn’t been lying? _

He hated that the thought made his hand still, hated that he was entertaining the impossibility that Sonic was alive, and that Rouge had cared enough to tell him. He couldn’t…

_ He wouldn’t be able to handle it if he let the hope grow and then die all over again. _

Shadow stared at the emeralds. The emeralds seemed to stare back at him. Just one more from Eggman and he could leave with them all...

And Shadow turned on his heel and sprinted out of the room empty-handed, Rouge’s threat to his life burning in his mind.

_ Fuck you, Rouge, _ he thought, feeling the betrayal overtake the rage once more.  _ Fuck you. _

* * *

Rouge’s mind struggled to think of cold things.

She had only been on the planet’s surface for a moment, but the sensations had all been new to her, not overwhelming yet, but a myriad of novelty. Temperature control had been there for almost her whole life, or at least, from the bits and pieces that she could remember.

If those were even real memories…

**_Fake._ **

Even without much experience, Rouge knew about ice. Hard. Cold. Unyielding. Only the sharpest of tools could break through it, only the strongest of fires could melt it. Rouge wished she could replace her warm, beating heart with ice, safe from tools and fires by her toughened exterior, built to withstand anything that dared try to break in and destroy it. The bat grit her teeth, trying to think of the cold winds on her first night on earth, but memories of all the different places assaulted her, from the big bright city, to the vast deserts and canyons, and the gorgeous islands in the middle of endless blue--

_ Stop. Stop right now. She couldn’t afford to do this again. _

Rouge had finally found a clear flaw in her design, her one weak spot, her kryptonite. Her heart, soft and warm, could become so damaged not by force, but by words. By actions. By being a fool and letting people in, only to lose over and over.  Such an easy piece of her to exploit, so she had to freeze it. Harden it until its sole purpose was to make blood flow through her veins and nothing else. Rouge thought of wind and of stone and the empty but efficient machines that kept the ARK alive, and breathed out. She felt nothing. She would learn, right now, how to make all these feelings stop and die.

She felt nothing at all as she walked outside the colony into the edge of the airlock and saw a mess of cerulean spines.

“It looks like you didn’t die after all,” she remarked, gaining the hedgehog’s attention. She saw the way his eyes widened in recognition and a degree of joyful eagerness, and did her best to not feel the same in return.

It was tough, but she swallowed down any good feelings she might have had about Sonic. He was an obstacle now, nothing more. No longer a peek into what might have been true for her, in a better timeline.  There was only now, and she had just one goal to accomplish. After that, well… maybe she could freeze herself indefinitely. Go to sleep and never wake up. Become the ice that she should have always been.

“You know, what can I say?” Sonic said with an easy shrug. “I die hard.”

The two began walking down the path toward the emptiness of space. Cold began to trickle in, and Rouge embraced it, leading it toward her heart. She needed to make sure that not even a speck of warmth remained inside her for her plans to succeed.

“You actually saved me, you know.”

The one sentence was enough to knock the winds from her sails, to make her falter. Rouge looked over to Sonic in astonishment, and the boy tossed the fake emerald in his hand up in the air before catching it. “Watching you on that island made me want to give Chaos Control a try,” he continued cheerfully. “You told me yourself that you thought I can do it, so what do you think? Did I pass the test?”

“So you used the fake emerald?” Rouge realized, too stunned to remember that she was supposed to be suppressing her emotions. “But that’s impossible. There’s no way you could have activated the Chaos Control with an emerald that’s fake!”

Both sped up to a light jog as Rouge’s understanding of the world fell apart, only adding to the crises of belief that she was having. “What are you, anyway?” she demanded, feeling a chill that had nothing to do with ice or space.

_ He couldn’t possibly be… _

Sonic’s smile was bright like the sun. “What you see is what you get,” he answered, turning to look forward. “Just a guy that loves adventure! I’m Sonic the Hedgehog!”

And it was such a simple answer, so readily given, and Rouge felt envy at this boy who was so comfortable with himself, with what he knew and who he was, who didn’t search for answers from the past or the future. Sonic was not like her, a mess of questions and confusions given power and a name.

He just… _ was. _

“I see,” Rouge replied softly, turning to look ahead again. The outside was fast approaching, and the cold reached out to her, reminding her of her conviction, prompting her to choose and become whatever she decided.

Rouge chose Maria, and hardened her heart once more.

“But you know, I can’t let you live.”

This would be Sonic’s final adventure.

* * *

Fighting Sonic felt different this time. Rouge was no longer surprised that someone else held the potential of manipulating Chaos Energy. She was not surprised by his speed, nor that their battle was, in part, a race. She was not caught off-guard by his attacks, nor did she hold her own back.

With every strike she dealt, she thought of Maria.

With every blow she took, she thought of Shadow.

_ Why? Why was she still thinking of him? _

Rouge dodged more often after that. Measured her speed so she could attack from behind. She saw Sonic growing weaker, his body already at a limit from teleporting himself with a fake emerald, and yet he was still pushing forward.

_ How? How could he be so… _

She had to kill him. She  _ had _ to. Her teeth grit together as she made another attack, and her blood boiled as Sonic dodged and laughed in response. He was trying to bait her, and she knew it. Logically, springing for the bait was always a bad call, but she could see his chest heaving, and his body drooping with exhaustion.

She was right behind him. She wouldn’t miss. One more hit and she could take him down before ending it all.

Rouge concentrated on only the blue blur before her. She was so close, so close to taking down one more obstacle in her path…

But then, Sonic did something she didn’t anticipate.

He stopped.

Rouge was the Ultimate Lifeform. Her reflexes were impeccable. She knew what was going to happen if she kept running.

But she didn’t stop, and she darted ahead of Sonic, suddenly a prime target.

_ What was she doing?! She needed to kill him! She needed to-- _

Sonic crashed into her back the very next second, and Rouge was knocked to the ground, and everything else was knocked out of her; her breath, her coldness, her motivation, her sense of purpose...

With this loss, Rouge felt as good as dead.

“Don’t take this the wrong way, Rouge,” Sonic said, his voice grating on her ears in the most unpleasant way, “but I’ve got a world to save, so I’ll catch you later.”

And with that, he sped off, a communicator suddenly in hand, and Rouge was alone, surrounded by the coldness that she failed to make a part of herself.

**_Failure._ **

_ Why? _

_ Why was she  _ **_doomed_ ** _ to fail? _

_ Why was the Ultimate Lifeform so… so…  _ **_weak?_ **

**_Fake. Fake fake fake fake fake..._ **

Rouge didn’t bother standing up until she felt the ARK tremble. Even with the growing evidence that said that she wasn’t who she thought she was, her motivations hadn’t changed. The world would still pay for what happened to Maria.

Eggman had collected all the emeralds, and though Rouge felt emptier than she ever had before, her feet moved back to the colony.

Like it or not, true or false, purpose or a complete lack thereof, she was seeing this through to the end.

_ What else did she have? _

* * *

The central control room was empty, which struck Eggman as odd. He expected Shadow to be in there, eyeing the emeralds if he hadn’t already run off with them, but all six were there, shimmering with every flash of light that came from the machines around it.

The doctor laughed, figuring he shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth. “This completes my plan to take over the world!” he hooted, taking out the yellow emerald and holding it aloft. “Now begins the glorious era of the Eggman Empire!”

With that, he tossed the final emerald into the core, and a surge of energy made the room tremble before the core rose upwards. Eggman laughed, his voice echoing off the walls, a grand testament to his victory, until a siren blared, a red light flashed, and a warning appeared on the holographic screen in front of him.

His villainous laugh died in his throat as the ARK began to shake and tremble, and he made his way to the console, eyes scanning the text that was appearing faster than most could read.

“Argh… What the… What’s going on?!” he demanded aloud, furrowing his brow as he hit a few keys, trying to find his way to an answer, while all around him, the promise of disaster continued to fill the room. “Why doesn’t the cannon fire?”

He found no answers as he typed away, searching and searching until a video flashed onscreen.

“What? What’s happening here?” Eggman wondered, setting the video to fullscreen, and gaping once he saw who was in it. “It… It’s my grandfather, Gerald Robotnik!”

Unease pooled into his gut, in the same way that it did whenever he typed that password in. His finger hovered over the playback button, and he hesitated. He had a feeling that he wouldn’t like what he found out.

The ARK gave another heavy shudder, and Eggman’s finger went decisively down.

The video began to play.

* * *

Shadow legged it as another tremble shook the ARK, peeking into room after room, looking for absolutely _anyone_ at this point. The world around him was literally and figuratively collapsing, with no answers or fragments of truth to be found.

What was real? What could Shadow believe in?

His ear twitched as he picked up voices, too faint to make out words, but he hurried in their direction, barrelling through the door and…

And…

_ No way… _

Shadow gaped, his eyes taking in windswept blue spines and bright green eyes. Those eyes blinked back at him, equally caught unawares, before softening as  _ Sonic the Hedgehog, _ alive and well, flashed him a grin.

“Hey Shadow,” he greeted. “Long time no see.”

“Shadow,” came another voice 一 Knuckles 一 and from the side, a red figure started walking toward him, “look, about what happened out there, and what I said… I just wanted… to…”

Knuckles trailed off as Shadow walked past him without so much as a glance, focused on Sonic, on how his eyes were blinking and his chest was moving and he was breathing, seeing,  _ alive, _ right in front of him. His hand reached forward, fingers trembling until they landed on Sonic’s arm.

Solid. Warm. Real.

_ It was him. _

“You bastard!” Shadow whispered, more amazed than angry or upset, and Sonic laughed, the sound freeing one of the weights from Shadow’s soul.

“My greatest escape to date, right?” he joked, and Shadow was about ready to cry again.

_ Rouge hadn’t lied. _

“You idiot.” Shadow began laughing as well, feeling lighter than he ever thought he would feel again. It came out, peals of laughter, unforced and rather unhinged, and for a moment Sonic looked concerned before it faded away and he simply looked glad.

Shadow, meanwhile, was ecstatic, and if he had even less self-control he would have thrown caution to the wind, wrapped his arms around Sonic, and pressed his lips to his cheek.

But he kept a grip on himself, content with the small bit of contact he had with Sonic’s arm, and Sonic seemed grateful that Shadow hadn’t gone any further than that. Shadow wanted more, he always wanted more, but he respected Sonic too much to overstep a boundary.

His hand went back to his side, and he basked in the feeling of having a part of his shattered heart fuse back together.

The ARK quaked again, and all three boys stumbled. “What’s that vibration?” Knuckles wondered, spreading his arms to keep balance.

“Sonic!”

The voice came from outside the room, and the next moment, Tails and Amy barged through the door, eyes wide with terror.

Almost immediately, Amy ran to Sonic, throwing her arms around him, and Shadow bit down the jealousy that burned within him like acid. Sonic, on the other hand, looked uncomfortable at the sudden, anchoring contact. At least Shadow could take some pride in knowing that he hadn’t lost his composure and ruined what little he had.

“Tails,” Sonic called over, “what’s going on?”

“It’s the space colony!” the fox cried out. “I tracked its movement and trajectory, and we’re heading straight for earth at incredible velocity!”

“What does that mean?” Knuckles demanded.

“It means we’re going to crash into the planet if we don’t save ourselves, and fast!” Shadow snapped, on edge again at this newest revelation.

_ One step forward and two steps back… just like always…  _

Sonic let out a chuckle. “Luckily for you, fast is what I do best!”

Shadow managed to smirk at Sonic’s playful banter, but before he could think up a retort, Knuckles interrupted his train of thought.

“What’s that on the screen?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: Gerald Robotnik fills in the blanks and everyone rushes to do their part to save the world and themselves.


	15. Chapter 15

All over the planet, monitors came to life, and from every corner of the earth, the final curse of a broken, desperate man echoed in everyone’s ears.

_ “This is a death sentence for every living being on Earth. If my calculations are correct, the Space Colony ARK will impact the Earth in 27 minutes and 53 seconds. All of you will be destroyed, along with your beloved planet earth. I plan to give you a taste of my revenge once all the seven Chaos Emeralds are collected. Once I initiated this program, it cannot be disabled. All of you ungrateful humans, who took everything away from me, will feel my loss and despair!" _

In the sky above the world, the second moon, the artificial satellite, the fabled space colony ARK hurtled toward the planet, and the people on the planet flew into a desperate panic. Loved ones embraced in horror. Children cried in terror as they realized their futures had been stolen from them. Everything ceased as everyone looked up into the sky, seeing the object that had ruled their fears for the past twenty-four hours, ever since the laser had hit the moon.

The cannon was the _least_ of their concerns, now.

* * *

_ “Is there anything else you want to say?” _

_ “...No.” _

_ “Ready!” _

The image on the screen flashed, then played again from the beginning, the old man’s bitter words carving their way anew into the ears and minds of everyone in the room, as the space colony continued to shudder and tremble as it made its way towards the planet’s atmosphere.

“What’s going on here?” Amy demanded, holding tighter onto Sonic’s arm as the spacecraft gave another lurch. “Who is that?!”

The lurches continued, settling into a consistent trembling. Knuckles glanced away from the screen, while everyone else seemed transfixed. “Hey,” he called out, trying to get things back on track. “The vibration is getting worse!”

But, as though the world conspired to ignore him once again, the automatic doors slid open, and in strode Dr. Eggman, who answered Amy’s inquiry. “Professor Gerald Robotnik,” he announced, making his way across the room, focusing on the man on the screen as the recording continued playing his vengeful tirade. “One of the greatest scientific minds in the world… and my grandfather!”

“What?!” Knuckles bared his teeth, raising his fists. “I  _ knew _ you were behind all this! Stop it right now, or else!” He punctuated his threat with a punch to his palm, but a scoff from the doctor effectively silenced his warning.

“I’d have done this a long time ago if I had the chance!”

“What do you mean?” Knuckles demanded, but Eggman’s eyes flickered past him and he paid him no more notice. The echidna nearly growled; he was getting sick and tired of being ignored.

Up next to him, he heard the familiar clicking of light footsteps on the floor, and out the corner of his eye, he saw blue.

_ Of course Eggman had seen Sonic and refocused his attention. Of course… _

“You’re pretty persistent for a hedgehog, aren’t you?” the doctor grumbled, sounding displeased but not upset. “You’re still alive, huh?”

“Heh.” Sonic swiped at his nose before elbowing Knuckles in the side, causing the echidna to jump and his face to turn a bright, flushed red. “Just letting Knuckles pilot the shuttle on the way over here was more dangerous than you could ever be!” he taunted.

Knuckles  _ really _ wished he hadn’t come on this adventure.

With a huff in response, Eggman began approaching the group, with something hidden in his grasp.

Shadow beat everyone else to the punch. “What’s that?” he pressed, pointing at the doctor’s gloved hand.

“This is my grandfather’s diary,” Eggman explained, holding it up and showing it off more clearly to the group. The silver disc caught the light, and rainbow lines refracted all over its surface.  Then, to the surprise of everyone, he handed it to Shadow, who stared at it dumbfounded for a moment until Eggman grew impatient.

“Well? Go on! Play it! Or have you forgotten how a computer works?”

“Shut your fucking mouth,” Shadow spat back, spines bristling, but he did as he was told and inserted the disc into the observation deck’s computer, skimming his way through the files at mach speed until he came across the final entry. As the words flashed across the screen, the hedgehog read aloud, voice echoing confidently and clearly across the room.

“I don’t quite know what happened or what went wrong. Was it a mistake to create the…”

Shadow stumbled, his eyes widening and his body tensing up until he was a mess of raised spines, but he found his tongue and kept reading.

“...was it a mistake to create the ultimate lifeform? I thought it would be something that would benefit mankind, but then the military guards landed on the colony that day. They were sent to destroy the research project that I had been working on…”

Shadow kept reading, and Gerald Robotnik’s final thoughts crashed down on the room like a tidal wave. He wrote of his hopes for his colleagues and his granddaughter. He wrote of the shutdown of the ARK and how it was covered up under the guise of an accident. He wrote of his granddaughter’s name displayed on the list of casualties and the overwhelming guilt he felt at her demise, all thanks to his research. All thanks to the development of the Ultimate Lifeform.

Shadow’s voice quavered as he read aloud Maria’s name.

Gerald Robotnik’s diary continued, speaking of anguish and insanity and an insatiable thirst for vengeance that made the temperature in the room feel as though it had dropped several degrees. Knuckles felt his body tremble, and it had nothing to do with the constant shaking of the ARK.

Then Shadow got to the final part of the diary, and his voice dropped to a whisper.

“I was able to complete my project: Rouge. I had designed its mind to be perfect, pure. I will leave everything to her. If you wish, release and awaken it to the world! If you wish to fill the world with destruction…”

Shadow stepped back from the screen and whirled around to face Eggman, his face stricken with horror and despair. “So that’s it?” he cried, pointing at the doctor. “That’s why you freed her from the base?”

Eggman didn’t bother responding to Shadow; the answer was obvious. “The core of the Eclipse Cannon is now highly reactive and explosive. This is because the energy of the Chaos Emeralds is overpowered. If the colony collides with earth, it will shatter into pieces like my grandfather predicted.” He took a moment to laugh. “That mad scientist!” he exclaimed, sounding far too happy for anyone’s liking.

“That should be you, right?” Amy asked, and the jubilation on the doctor’s face instantly diminished.

“We have to stop the space colony! Now!” Tails insisted, stepping forward, his tails thrashing with anxiety, and finally, the reality of the situation seemed to fully hit Dr. Eggman.

_ None of them were going to survive this. _

“The space colony ARK’s position may have shifted due to the amount of energy given off by the emeralds,” he finally yielded. “We have to stop the energy!”

Tails nodded, bringing a hand up to his face to rub at his chin. “But how?” he wondered, and everyone around him could practically hear the gears turning in his brain.

“There is one way,” came a hushed voice, and everyone turned their attention to Shadow, who still looked seconds away from screaming or crying. Teal eyes roved blankly over face after face, until they stopped on Knuckles, who shrank under the attention. “We use the Master Emerald.”

Knuckles blinked in surprise. Reflexively, his hand went to the hidden treasure, and the soothing energies from the now-restored heirloom melted some of his fears away.

“You said it yourself,” Shadow continued in that hollow, hushed tone of his, while his deadened eyes bored into his own. “It has the power to neutralize the energy of the Chaos Emeralds.”

The echidna drew out his massive emerald, still looking at Shadow in surprise. “You remembered that?”

Shadow’s eyes narrowed in displeasure, and though it wasn’t good to see per se, it was still a step up from that glassy, empty look that had been there before. “Of course I did,” Shadow snapped, another fraction of his usual self returning. “Do you think I don’t listen to a single damn word you say?”

Knuckles bit back his instinctive reply of ‘yeah, basically’; they had a direction to go in, and bickering with Shadow would only eat up the precious minutes they had left. “He’s right,” he said to the room instead. “If I use this, we just might be able to stop the Chaos Emeralds.”

The sound of furious typing from behind him caught his attention; it appeared that Tails had gone over to his own computer, inputting commands until a map of the colony showed on screen. “The reaction of the Chaos Emeralds is moving towards the cannon’s core!” he determined as the trajectory showed up on the monitor. “It may be too late…”

Knuckles sucked in a breath. If there was ever a time that the group needed one of Sonic or Amy’s famous pep talks, it was now.

Yet, to everyone’s surprise, it was Eggman who interjected.

“There still may be some time left, if we pull together. We might be able to get to the shortcut that leads to the core!”

Eggman pushed past Sonic, Amy, and Knuckles on his way to Tails, and motioned to the screen, drawing a path with his finger as the map shifted and changed. Once the path to the shortcut became clear, Sonic spoke up again.

“No worries! Just leave it to me. I’m the world’s fastest hedgehog!” he bragged, stretching out his legs and shooting Shadow an apologetic wink.

No one could miss the way Shadow’s face burned with red at the gesture.

“Then let’s get to work,” Eggman commanded, and no one argued his tone of authority. It was time for action.

* * *

Tails was busy destroying the door to the cannon’s core, while Eggman was busting in a security door further up the shortcut’s path. Shadow had recovered enough from his state to search for a draining switch to empty the core’s room, while Knuckles was swimming around, searching for the final entry point. Sonic was racing past the energy field to get to his destination before the emeralds did, and Amy…

Amy was left alone. Again.

“Ooh, I hate it when they leave me behind!” she griped, walking through the halls with nothing but the sound of her own feet hitting the ground to answer her. She didn’t understand it; hadn’t she proved her strength? Her capability? Granted, she hadn’t done much in terms of fighting on this particular adventure, but it wasn’t her fault that every time she found an opponent, he had a gun or a cannon or missiles or…

Amy huffed, crossing her arms. It just wasn’t fair! Tails was younger than her, and he still got to do everything!

She hoped they didn’t leave her behind just because she was a girl. She was going to break some skulls if that was the case.

A door to her left swished open as she passed it, giving the hedgehog pause. She saw a dark figure in the room, staring out into space. In the background, Gerald Robotnik’s message kept repeating, and as the name ‘Maria’ was uttered once again, the figure flinched.

Amy blinked, squinting to get a better look at who it was, and let out a soft gasp. She had seen her before! On the island! She knew who this was!

“It’s Rouge!” she whispered under her breath, and one of the bat’s long ears swivelled in her direction. Amy knew she had been heard, yet the bat didn’t move.

For a while, Amy puzzled over what to do. Should she leave her alone? Should she try to make her help them survive this doomsday?

The ARK made another great lurch, and Amy made up her mind.

“I’ve really got to stop whining!” she chided herself. “Everyone is trying their best to help out, and so must I!”

With that in mind, she sprinted over to Rouge, watching as the bat’s ear followed her movements. Rouge’s eyes, however, remained fixed out to the void, deadened and cold. She looked worse for wear, and Amy almost reconsidered her plan until she saw how close they now were to the planet.

Gerald Robotnik’s message repeated one more time.

“Rouge!” Amy called out loudly to drown out the sound of the vengeful old man on the screen. “We need you! Please help us!”

“It’s all going according to plan,” Rouge responded in a monotone, her eyes never leaving the vast expanse of space. “There is no reason for me to help them. Besides…” The bat’s hand gripped at her arm, fingers digging into the insignia on her jumpsuit. “...there’s no way to save anyone.”

The name ‘Maria’ filtered out over the speakers again, and Amy saw Rouge’s grip tighten even more. The pink hedgehog’s heart ached at the sight; she was no stranger to love, in any of its forms, and she could see that Rouge had loved Maria just as much as Gerald Robotnik had. It was almost enough to choke her up.

“There has to be!” she insisted, her voice rising in pitch as she fought back her upset and her desperation. “I…” She looked down at the planet below them, hearing the professor’s harsh, damning words, spoken out against all of mankind. “I know that people fight over the most trivial things. Some people may be selfish like the professor said… but they’re basically good! If they try their best and never give up on their wishes, then they always have a reason to be happy!”

Through her speech, Amy felt her love for mankind grow. Her feelings, strong and pure, had never led her astray before, and she wanted, more than anything, for Rouge to understand them. “That’s why you should help them out… saving them is a good thing!”

Amy stared at Rouge, whose mouth had thinned into a hard line. Crimson eyes narrowed, countless thoughts swirling behind them, and Amy had to finish her heartfelt appeal. “Rouge, I beg you, please do it for them! Give them a chance!”

The result was instantaneous. Rouge’s eyes grew wide, her pupils shrinking into tiny pinpricks, and her wings shot out as the ARK gave another heavy tremble. Amy squealed, struggling to keep her footing, but her eyes never left Rouge, who was once again staring into the distance.

But it felt… _different,_ now.

* * *

_ “Rouge, I beg of you, please do it for me, for a better future!” _

_ “MARIA!” _

_ “For all the people who live on that planet… give them a chance to be happy! Let them live for their dreams. Rouge… I know you can do it. That’s the reason why you were brought into this world…” _

_ “MARIA! MARIA PLEASE, DON’T--” _

_ “Sayonara… Big Sister Rouge…” _

* * *

The ARK shook again and Rouge gasped in a breath. Her head pounded and ached, and her mind swam with thoughts.

She knew that this, too, could be a fake memory, a fake memory for a fake person, b ut just like before, she was going to choose Maria’s wish, even if she wasn’t real. Maria’s will was all she had now.

Or maybe… maybe she had more than she realized.

Rouge’s eyes screwed shut as her chosen truth dawned on her. “That’s what I’ve promised her, and I must keep that promise. That’s what Maria wished for…”  A tear escaped her shut eyelids, sliding down her cheek and falling to the floor. She couldn’t believe that she had it all wrong this whole time.

Maria was not a vengeful person. Maria was kind-hearted, and warm, and generous, and loving, and… and…

_ And her older, little sister that she would never forget like that again! _

“Rouge?”

Amy’s soft voice registered to Rouge’s ear, and the bat broke out of her trance, determined to do at least one thing right in her life. Without a second thought, Rouge went over to the hedgehog and pulled her into a hug, her wings encircling her arms as she felt Amy stiffen in shock. “Thank you,” Rouge whispered, fighting back any more tears that threatened to fall. She had to be strong, now. “Thank you for reminding me.”

“You’re welcome?” Amy sounded uncertain, but she returned the hug with a soft squeeze around Rouge’s midsection before the two parted and Rouge stepped away.

“I have to go now,” she said, wiping at her eyes to make sure they were dry. “I have to keep my promise to Maria… and you.”

Her heart was softening again, but at that moment, Rouge couldn’t bring herself to care.

The bat sprinted from the room, navigating her way through the maze of hallways, while behind her, Gerald Robotnik’s message of doom faded from her hearing. Rouge didn’t look back; she had an impact to stop.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: The biolizard is set free, and Rouge and Sonic summon their true power.


	16. Chapter 16

Breaking into the cannon’s core wasn’t easy, but with the help from his friends, it went much smoother than expected.

Sonic rushed into the massive room with Knuckles in tow, skidding to a halt and gaping at the high ceilings and large structures that didn’t seem like they should have fit inside of the space colony. The hedgehog felt his jaw begin to slacken as he took in the cavern, the shrine, the pedestals…

_ How could the ARK fit all this inside, along with all the technology and the people and the life support equipment? _

Knuckles, however, seemed more focused on other things.

“What’s that?” he demanded, pointing right at the structure in the center. “It looks just like the shrine of the Master Emerald!”

Sonic had to agree, save for the gigantic, pulsating machine right above it. That took up more of his concern than a few aesthetic choices.

“They probably designed the core like the shrine to harness the power of the Chaos Emeralds,” he reasoned, eager to get back to their mission. The ARK gave another violent shake, prompting him to run to the steps, and the thundering sound of clumsy footfalls told him that Knuckles was right on his tail.

They passed by shallow beds of water, encircling the paths that granted them access to the awaiting staircase, but the sight of the pools and streams made Sonic’s spines start to prick up in unease. To make matters worse, Gerald Robotnik’s repeated message had made its way down to the core room as well, and Sonic was, frankly, sick and tired of listening to the angry man’s final words.

He was sure he wasn’t alone in that regard.

The machine above the shrine gave a particularly potent lurch, and Sonic felt his guts knot up in anticipation. “Knuckles! Here it comes!” he warned, as the old man's speech grew louder and more distorted. A surge of power sparked out of the machine, manifesting itself into what looked like deep blue lightning, spreading and crackling, growing in intensity until the cavern was bathed in blue and white.

_ Were they too late? _

A loud rumbling filled the room, but it wasn’t the sort that caused the ship to shake and tremble; it was a rumbling that ran through one’s ears, causing hair to stand on end and a sense of dread to take root in the soul.  The light subsided, the recorded message grew clear again, and a massive beast emerged from the machine above the shrine, throwing back its head as it let out a howl that pierced the air around them.

It landed in front of the two mobians, splashing in the water. Sonic shivered as a few droplets landed on him, trying his hardest not to think about swimming or drowning or being submerged. Instinctively, he stepped to the side, closer to the water, but out of range of the beast’s head, in case it decided to send it crashing down on them both.

“Could this be the prototype of the Ultimate Lifeform that was supposed to be encapsulated?” Knuckles wondered aloud, and the thought made Sonic pause and look at the huge lizard-type thing with new eyes.

_ Was this who Rouge was originally supposed to be? _

As if in answer, a gust of wind blew past their shoulders, and the sound of footsteps echoed forth before a low voice growled out.

“If that’s the case, then leave her to me.”

Sonic whipped around; Rouge the Bat was walking down the pathway, still scuffed up from their last encounter, her red eyes locked onto the prototype with undisguised hostility. Her wings stretched out, beginning to beat until she hovered a foot off the ground.

As glad as he was to see her still around and kicking, Sonic had his concerns about her goals, especially given the way she had spoken when they had raced outside the ARK.

“Rouge, what are you doing?”

Rouge paid him no heed, flying toward the beast before them, rising into the air until they were eye to eye. The lizard paused, her rumblings turning softer as she seemed to find familiarity in the bat before her. Rouge took the opportunity to call down to the two below.

“I’ll take care of this, while you run to get the Chaos Emeralds!”

And with that, she swooped through the air, distracting the biolizard and leading her around in circles, clearing up the path for Sonic and Knuckles to run along.

Sonic wasted no time, realizing with a surge of joy that Rouge was on their side this time. He gripped onto Knuckles’ wrist and tugged him forward. “Come on!” he urged, as the echidna stumbled to keep up.

“Can she really fight that thing alone?” Knuckles asked.

Sonic’s response was immediate and certain.  


“Without a doubt. Now let’s go do what we came here to do!”

* * *

Rouge had a lot of anger left over from days and days of living a lie and believing it wholeheartedly, and then having her worldview be shattered in an instant, leaving her with a bigger picture that she had to struggle to fit back into.  


She was angry at herself, first and foremost, for never considering what might have lay beneath the blanks in her memories, instead focusing on the fragmented information that was before her, and choosing to believe in the easiest answer. That was shortsighted and foolish of her. She was angry at herself for ending several lives and endangering countless ones, all for the sake of an insubstantial promise that she had guessed about. That was something she could _never_ take back, _never_ redeem herself for.

She slammed the button on the lizard’s back once, and the beast’s screams echoed throughout the chamber. 

She was angry at the military, of course, for choosing a violent shutdown and slaughtering so many innocent scientists, so many innocent civilians, a young teenage girl with so much hope for the future and the planet she adored, and created a vengeful monster in their wake.

She hit the button a second time, and the biolizard roared even louder as the blood pounded in Rouge’s ears.

No… they hadn’t made just _one_ vengeful monster…

Gerald Robotnik… her grandfather and someone she had trusted so much… she was angry with him, too. Behind her back, he had taken her notes and repurposed her prototype, planning on global destruction and mass carnage, if not the total extinction of life on earth, or the annihilation of the planet that he was supposed to have loved. Rouge was supposed to be someone who helped people, but he made her original design into a monster, a weapon, the exact thing that had frightened the military into shutting down the ARK. The exact thing that had ended Maria’s life. Gerald Robotnik had done precisely what Rouge herself had done, but with all his memories intact, and she was so incredibly _angry_ at him for that.

And so she pulverised the button a third time, listening to her prototype wail in agony, feeling a sick sense of satisfaction that maybe, just this once, she could kill the truly awful parts of herself by killing this beast.  


She knew, logically, that they would stay with her even as this biolizard died, but it was oh so  **cathartic** to hurt this creature made of malice.

* * *

Knuckles followed Sonic up the stairs, pausing for just a moment to catch his breath as the sound of battle continued behind them. Up above, he could still hear the machines humming and clanging, and all around them, Robotnik’s message kept repeating in a loop. The guardian went to the center of the shrine, where all the symbols on the floor met at a circular indentation, and he took out the Master Emerald, placing it carefully in the middle.  His hands reached out, brushing against the minute fractures in the gem from where it had been pieced back together, and exhaled, making sure he remembered the words he needed to say.

“The servers are the seven Chaos. Chaos is power, power is enriched by the heart. The controller is the one that unifies the Chaos.”

The Master Emerald began to spin, and the symbols on the ground began to glow a bright red, feeding into the sacred artifact and making it shine.

“Only you can do this!” Knuckles cried out, earnestly pleading for the emerald’s help, for the help of his ancestors, to not allow their culture and their duties to end like this. “Stop the Chaos Emeralds!”

The Master Emerald continued to spin and glow, spin and glow, faster and brighter until the blue lightning reappeared, striking all around them like the wrath of a god, until a final, powerful shriek from the beast chilled him to the bone.

The Master Emerald had stopped in place, the glow had died down, and Knuckles couldn’t tell if the ritual had worked or not.  Then, in a flash of bright light, the biolizard warped out of sight, and he was left even more confused than before.

“Is it gone?” he asked, still blinking away the bluriness from his eyes.

His ears picked up the sound of wings before he saw the bat touch down to the ground. “Was that Chaos Control?” Rouge demanded, and Knuckles had no answer to give. “Did that thing have that ability all along?”

The ARK rumbled, even worse than before, causing everyone to crouch to the ground for better balance. Knuckles felt his heart freeze in his chest; it didn’t seem like their plan had worked. 

“Since we stopped the Chaos Emeralds, why is the space colony still on a crash course to earth?” he demanded. After all that effort, they were still hurtling at top speed to their doom, and now this monster prototype  _ thing _ was set free.

Life really did hate him, today...

To add insult to injury, one particularly violent shake of the colony had him sprawled on the floor, beating out of him the last shred of dignity he had been holding on to.

The loud sound of static distracted everyone from their terror and confusion. Eggman’s voice filtered through the speakers, doubling over itself but still understandable.

_ “The prototype is still alive, and she’s controlling the space colony as it’s falling to earth! She’s become one with the space colony, and is determined to keep it on its collision course!” _

The speaker crackled out, the doctor’s warning hanging in the air like a thick fog, and for a moment, nothing happened. Knuckles pushed himself to his knees, forcing himself to stand up, while Sonic and Rouge stared up above, unmoving.

“Sonic!” the echidna urged, feeling panic start to well up in him.

_ They were going to die. By Chaos, they were all going to **die.** _

Sonic spared him a sideways glance, before he turned to Rouge and smiled wide at her. Rouge’s teeth were bared, pointed and furious, but the anger seemed to ebb and a look of understanding dawned on her face.

Knuckles watched, amazed, as the two met in the middle, beside the Master Emerald. Each raised an arm: Sonic his right, and Rouge her left. From above, the Chaos Emeralds floated down, no longer trapped by the cannon, nor the biolizard’s prison, and Knuckles felt a surge of energy crackle through the air as the emeralds reawakened their power.  


Sonic was smiling.

Rouge was smiling back.

Their hands twirled in the air in tandem, and the sacred gems swirled around them like a cyclone, rising in speed and energy, much like the Master Emerald had just a moment prior, but now it was due to the sheer power that those two held. Knuckles’ eyes widened as he realized what he was about to witness.  A flash of golden light overtook his vision, and once again he had to blink several times until the world came back into focus, but once it did, his breath caught in his throat.

Sonic stood before him, golden and glorious, and though Knuckles had seen him in this form before, his Super Form, it was still no less incredible to behold.

But now, he was seeing double.

Rouge stood tall next to Sonic, her fur more platinum compared to Sonic’s gold, and the red stripes remained in her hair and along her wings, which had also transformed into a gorgeous golden color.

On their own, they would have been magnificent, but together, and so close by?

Knuckles was pretty sure he was having a religious experience.

“Don’t worry, Knux!” Sonic said, giving him a brilliant thumbs up. “We got this under control!”

“Thank you for your help,” Rouge added, grabbing on to Sonic’s hand. “We’ll take it from here.”

And with that, both of them warped away, leaving Knuckles dazzled and awestruck until he shook his head clear again. He needed to stop doing this. He needed to keep focusing on what was needed of him, like taking his emerald and making sure it was safe and secure before finding the others and making a rendezvous point. He didn’t have the time nor the energy to revisit an old crush, or indulge a new one.

Yet all the same, as he plucked the Master Emerald from its altar, he couldn’t help but take just a moment to close his eyes, and revisit that splendid image that Sonic and Rouge had forever embossed into his brain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: Live and Learn.


	17. Chapter 17

The vacuum of space pressed down around the two of them, threatening to grind them into dust, but the power flowing through them boiled over, dissipating into the void around their bodies. Rouge took in a breath, the energies of her new, superpowered form allowing her to exist in space as though it were one of the pressurized rooms aboard the ARK, or any of the many beautiful locations on earth, and she let go of Sonic’s hand as they both stared down their opponent.

The biolizard roared, her own energies filtering through space like waves of light, and the noise hit their eardrums and resonated down to their bones, until their hearts vibrated along with it. Ivo hadn’t been exaggerating when he had said that she had become a part of the ARK; her prototype had fused with the Eclipse Cannon, urging forward the colony’s descent into the world below. Rouge’s wings spread out wide behind her, bathing herself in a golden glow, and from her side, she saw a similar flash of golden light as Sonic prepared to strike.

Rouge’s lips quirked. In all her years 一 6? 18? 56? 一 she had always trained alone, fought alone. She had been unparalleled, something untouchable and ferocious, both a weapon and a cure, the answer to the question of nigh invincibility and eternal life. She was made to protect, to attack, to turn back or refocus at the smallest order, always following the wishes of others as well as her own.

She had never had someone to fight alongside, before.

Beside her, Sonic glowed like a star, eager at the promise of a new battle and a new challenge. His eyes, red like rubies, a startling contrast to their usual green, burned with a fire that Rouge knew by sight, but never truly understood herself.

She had seen such fire in Maria, once, long ago, when the girl still looked down at the world with wonder and shared all her plans and determinations with her.

Rouge felt herself soften just a little more.

A crackling noise sounded in her left ear, and Rouge raised her arm to her head, realizing belatedly that she still had her headset on. She fiddled with the dials, trying not to wince when the interference reached an ear-shattering peak, but in seconds she heard Ivo’s voice filtering out of the speaker, crystal clear.

_ “Rouge, Sonic, do you read me?” _

“Yes, we do,” she responded, making Sonic redirect his attention. The hedgehog floated around at breakneck speed to her other side, leaning in to listen as well.

_ “Excellent, now listen to me. She’s very weak without her life support system. Aim for the red swelling areas to damage her! You’re our last hope!” _

Sonic whistled, too close to Rouge’s ear for her comfort. “No pressure, then,” he bantered as Rouge lowered the volume on her headset, focusing instead on her horrid other self, searching out for the swelling that the doctor had mentioned.

“Bingo!”

The triumphant cry resounded through space, and the very next second, Sonic had rushed out, aiming for the biolizard’s hind leg. Sure enough, there was a large patch, angry and red and swollen, which he aimed at with all his might. Rouge was amazed that he had found it so quickly…

_...or was it just more proof of what she already knew, deep down inside? _

Sonic struck at her prototype, and the beast screamed, sending shivers down Rouge’s spine as she tried to bite back the urge to scream with her. The energy around her only seemed to grow in intensity, encircling them all like a bubble.

“She’s still so powerful,” Rouge murmured in awe. “What kind of creature are you?”

Sonic floated back beside her, knocked back from the force of his blow, and Rouge brought out a hand to keep him from flying away. “How are you doing?” she asked, and in response, she got an easy grin and a thumbs-up.

“All yours!”

The bat nodded, focusing her energies and darting forward, zeroing in on a new swelling spot. She kicked out, giving the blow everything she had, even as the screech that tore out of the biolizard’s throat threatened to make her shriek in empathy.

_ Those screams… those could so easily be her own screams… _

“Rouge, how’re you holding up?”

A hand rested between her wings, and suddenly Rouge was back with Sonic, having similarly been blasted backwards by her blow. She took in a deep breath and winced; her injuries from sparring with Sonic still hadn’t fixed themselves, even with her accelerated healing abilities.

_ Could this be because of his own abilities to manipulate Chaos Energy? Or was it still just more proof that he was, in fact-- _

“Take a breather for a sec, and leave Big n' Ugly to me, okay?”

Without waiting for an answer, he was off, dodging the lasers her prototype blasted out to defend herself, searching for another swollen lump to pummel. Rouge shook her head and refocused her breathing, and by the time Sonic had been blasted back to her, she was ready to strike once more.

It continued on for a while, both of them switching in and out, tagging each other in as they kept beating away at this threat, a threat that so easily could have been Rouge herself, trying their hardest to save a planet that the bat had only recently come to accept as being worth saving. As their battle went on, Rouge felt less and less like a hero worthy of Maria’s promise, and more and more like someone who was simply fixing their wrongs. It was hard to think otherwise, especially with Sonic fighting so fiercely for the planet, purely out of his own want to keep it safe.

Maria had begged Rouge to protect every last person on that planet, but something else was starting to become clear, a truth that was hard to face but was undeniable:

That hero that Maria wanted… that was never supposed to be Rouge.

The ARK kept hurtling toward the planet’s atmosphere, and Rouge felt the weight of everyone’s expectations on her, from up above, down below, and beyond the grave. Even as she struggled with the thoughts clouding her mind, she didn’t let it stop her from fighting back against her grandfather’s greatest mistake, a nd so she fought like someone with everything to prove, disregarding Sonic’s warnings that her energy was starting to evaporate. The words rang in her ears, a final piece of proof that cemented her certainties about Sonic and herself.

_ She shouldn’t be losing energy. She shouldn’t be drained while Sonic was still going strong. _

Yet she kept on target, delivering the final blow to the prototype, hearing her counterpart wail before feeling all the extra power around her fade into nothing. Rouge heaved out a breath.

_ They had defeated the Final Hazard! _

A jubilant whoop reached her ear, and when she turned around, body aching from injury and overexertion, she felt her hand being clasped in another; Sonic’s face floated before hers, grinning ear to ear, and in spite of herself, Rouge smiled back, squeezing his hand in hers. She couldn’t help it; Sonic naturally possessed an air about him that made people want to smile back, but there was more to it than just that. It was in the way they shared a power that no one else held. It was in the way they had fought together, equals in every way.

Rouge was so used to thinking of most people as beneath her, in terms of strength and ability, and to meet someone who was her match…

She kind of wanted to pat him on the head, too. See if he liked it like Shadow had.

_ Are you my friend? _ she wanted to ask.  _ Is this what friendship feels like? Is this what kinship feels like? _

But she already knew the answer, so she said nothing as their hands came apart.

The sky around them seemed to light on fire, and sound reentered their eardrums, and the two sent each other a panicked look as they realized that they were a minute away from the point of no return; the ARK was still fast approaching the earth’s atmosphere, and they needed to stop it.  **Now.**

“No way that’s getting through!” Sonic cried, reaching out a hand to the space colony’s surface. The metal was quickly turning red, then orange, then white, burning up at the intense heat on re-entry. Rouge followed him, still gritting her teeth from pain and almost recoiling at the temperatures around her, while Sonic appeared to have neither of these problems. Rouge heaved an exhale, finally coming to terms with what she had suspected for a long time as they both tried to warp the ARK back into orbit, with no results.

“Sonic, I think I know now what the Ultimate Lifeform is…”

Because it was obvious, wasn’t it? With the way Sonic carried his energy, with the way he had mastered it without training or rapid growth or serums, with the way he managed to stay put together while Rouge could only tear herself apart, with his ability to induce Chaos Control with a fake emerald...

The Ultimate Lifeform wasn’t something that could be created in a lab. Rouge had been a remarkably successful attempt, and she would not deny that in the slightest, but she was held to the manmade constraints of sciences from decades back.

The Ultimate Lifeform couldn’t be _created;_ it had to be _born,_ with Mother Nature at the helm, deciding when and how this being would come into the world.

“...I think it might be you.”

The ARK gave another terrifying lurch as they were pushed to their limits, and Maria’s final wish replayed itself in Rouge’s mind as she played her trump card, her last resort. Her hands fell to her forearms, unlocking and removing the heavy rings that clamped around her wrists, and tossed them into the void. All around them, palpable like the sweat beading on their foreheads and lips, Rouge’s unhindered energy suddnely surrounded them like that of the biolizard, and upon feeling it, Sonic’s hands seemed to push with more intensity.

“ROUGE!” he bellowed out as her own hands met the searing hot metal. _“NOW!”_

Both sucked in a breath, twin cries of **_‘CHAOS CONTROL!’_** shook the mix of air and void around them, and Rouge felt all of her strength leave her body like toothpaste from a tube, shooting upward and surrounding the ARK, halting it in its trajectory before it warped away, safe and sound.

_ They had done it. _

_ Somehow, they had done it. _

Rouge let out a soft laugh, closing her eyes, feeling the embrace of oblivion pull at her. She didn’t fight back. There was no point.

She vaguely heard a yell, Sonic’s yell, but the very next second, the roar of air drowned it out as she fell into the planet’s atmosphere. That was okay. This was all okay.

Rouge had done what she had sought out to do.

As she felt the fires of reentry eat at her ears and her head, she thought of Maria. Rouge knew that she had kept her promise, in one way or another. She had corrected her mistakes, and had seen the beautiful world that her sister had always dreamed of exploring. She would not be able to keep protecting it, but that was fine, too.

There was someone else already doing that, for the both of them. The true Ultimate Lifeform.

As Rouge felt her headset crumble and break, the fires spreading down her wings as the pressure around her built up even more, she thought of Sonic. Her counterpart, her equal, someone she never thought could exist. Rouge was so glad he existed, an even greater form of herself, the true hero that the world needed, chosen by nature instead of created by a man who held too much power and used it for all the wrong reasons.

Rouge knew she could entrust Maria’s wish to him, the better version of herself, her twin in power and superior in spirit.

And as she felt the flames consume her entirely, she thought of everyone aboard the ARK. She thought of Amy, sweet and innocent, who had helped jog her memory. She thought of Knuckles, rough and serious, who had the ability to short out the power of the emeralds. She thought of Tails, so young and yet capable of going toe to toe in battle with a mechanical genius with years of experience.

She wondered what life would have been like if she had been allowed to know them better, to befriend them, but it was a little late for that, now.

She thought of Ivo, and wondered if he would ever be satisfied.

Finally, she thought of Shadow, and at that, her heart trembled with regret. Shadow, her surrogate brother of sorts, who she had hurt so badly… who had hurt  _ her _ so badly… whose last conversation with her had been that awful, terrible argument, where they had torn at each other, where he had targeted her worst fears and insecurities, causing her mind to spiral into mayhem…

She hoped he knew, somehow, that she forgave him for that. That she could never manage to remove him from her heart, no matter how hard she had tried.

_ She hoped he could forgive her as well. _

In her final moments, as she fell down, down, down, Rouge felt so many things; peace, confidence, regret, sorrow, happiness…

**Acceptance.**

_ Sayonara… everyone. Every last one of you. _

* * *

Sonic the Hedgehog, for once in his life, was dragging his feet. The soft sound of his shoes hitting the metal ground echoed through the halls, and the weight of the rings he carried in both hands felt like a ton each.

What, exactly, was the weight of a life?

As he stopped in front of the door to the observation deck, he closed his eyes. He could still see it, the image of Rouge’s super form giving out like a lightbulb spontaneously losing power and flickering out. He could still feel the urge to fly forward and rescue her, but the very next second, the pull of gravity had claimed her, and to go after her would have been suicide, with or without his super form holding up.

He had been too slow, just this once, and it _killed_ him inside.  He had never met anyone else in the world like himself before he had found Rouge, and to lose her so soon was…  It felt like a piece of him had suddenly gone missing, like he had finally accessed a level of understanding with another person that he would never find or feel again, only to have it slip through his fingers.

The door slid open, and Sonic tried to knock himself out of his stupor, but he couldn’t even find it in himself to plaster a fake smile on his face. All around him, he saw the delighted grins of his friends morph into looks of confusion and, as some of them put the pieces together, horror.

When Shadow stepped forward, his muzzle unusually pale, Sonic fought the urge to run away.

“Where’s Rouge?” he asked in a whisper, and Sonic couldn’t answer him. Instead, he silently took one of Shadow’s hands, and placed one of the rings he was holding into it.

He had seen them, floating in the void of space, and recognized them instantly; Rouge’s rings, which she had kept around her wrists.

He almost gave Shadow the second one, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Not even when he saw the other hedgehog’s face twist in grief and his eyes fill with tears. Shadow bolted out of the room the very next second, racing down the hall, but the door had still yet to close before his screams of anguish flooded back into the room.

* * *

Eggman stared down at the world, still processing everything that had happened. A splash of yellow appeared in his periphery, and he started talking without a second thought.

“As a child, I always looked up to my grandfather and all the great things he accomplished in his life,” he confessed, staring out into the stars instead of keeping his watch on the planet. “He was my hero, and I wanted to be a great scientist like him!”

Eggman recalled his childhood, learning about his incredible grandfather up in space, and his cool older cousin who was lucky enough to be up there with him. His own childlike naivete tasted bittersweet, especially now, when he had walked right into Gerald Robotnik’s plans.

“But… did he really mean to destroy us?”

The doctor finally looked to his side; as he expected, Tails was standing there, his twin tails undulating as they always did, and the clever fox had a response, as he always had.

“I don’t know, but what I  _ do _ know is that we all saved the world together!”

And Eggman took a moment to really look at this child, whose own naivete mirrored his own when he was so young, and he couldn’t find it in himself to argue or complain or… _anything_ right then.

“You’re right,” he conceded, and with that, they descended into a comfortable silence.

* * *

When Shadow reappeared, he was wearing the ring Sonic had given him over his left wrist, and he marched past everyone, head bowed low with blue eyeliner markings smudged all over his face. He stood by the window, staring blankly down at the world, not even making a sign of acknowledgement as Sonic approached him.

For a while, the two stood there, unspeaking, watching the stars and the world pass them by.

“Do you really think…”

Sonic looked over to Shadow, who was tracing the ring he now wore around his wrist with his fingers. “The professor,” Shadow clarified, “do you think he created her, just to get revenge on everyone?”

Shadow’s voice was so weak, his question just barely holding back a flood of fear and pain, and Sonic grasped the second ring with both of his hands as he answered.

“She was who she was. A brave and heroic person, who gave everything to save this planet. She was Rouge the Bat.”

Shadow remained silent for a moment before replying. “I guess you’re right,” he murmured, putting his hand against the window; Rouge’s ring glinted on his wrist, reflected in the glass. Shadow stayed like that, even when Sonic left him to grieve and Knuckles took his place.

“So uh… what’s next?” the echidna asked, and Shadow felt upset enough that he could have torn into him for hours.

Yet… it was a question he had an answer to. It was a thought he had been entertaining for a while, and, well… it was nice to still have someone to share it with.

“Don’t worry about your emerald,” he said, his voice sounding almost as hollow as he felt. “I’m not going to be after it for a long time.” Shadow paused, taking in a breath, and to Knuckles’ credit, he didn’t interrupt or ask any stupid questions. He just stood there, ready to listen, and Shadow, needing that kind of support, took it without a second thought. “I’m going to look for her,” he announced, screwing his eyes shut before they watered over for yet another time that day. “I’ll look the whole world over until I find her, dead or alive, and when I do…”

His hand clasped at the ring around his wrist. Tears he thought he had finished crying out fell from his still-shut eyelids. “...I’ll give this ring back to her, for her to keep.”

His voice gave out as he choked on emotion, the sting of loss so raw and new that it made him dizzy, and Shadow doubled over, curling in on himself, thinking about his new mission. He knew he might never find the body. He knew that, undoubtedly, if he did find her, he would find a corpse, burnt and unrecognizable, but that didn’t matter. He _had to_ do it.

He had to do it for her, the one who had saved his life and made it brighter for one short, beautiful day.

“...I’m sure she’ll appreciate it.”

Shadow scoffed, raising his head with a small spark of his usual energy. “You would say that,” he taunted, finally looking toward the echidna. “You’re terrible at this sort of thing, you know. You and her had that in common. You guys would have gotten along great, she hated fun things, just like you.”

Knuckles rolled his eyes. “Whatever you say, Shadow,” he returned, and Shadow let himself be grateful, just this once, that Knuckles was letting him have his grief-filled tirade.

_ Maybe he wasn't so bad, after all. _

* * *

Not many things could bother Sonic for very long, but he had a feeling that this one would stick by him for a while.

He knew, right towards the end, that Rouge had said something, too softly for him to make out, but he had heard his name, right at the beginning. He had strained to listen, he had heard the words ‘Ultimate Lifeform’, but the rest were lost to space and the roaring of the ARK as it continued on its collision course. Sonic struggled to remember, to recall the moment, to not let Rouge’s final words be lost forever, but no matter how hard he tried, he still couldn’t--

“What’s the matter, Sonic?”

The blue hedgehog looked up, seeing Amy reflected in the glass behind him. Her eyes were wide with curiosity and concern, and Sonic considered telling her everything until he realized just how much time he had spent standing in that very spot, trying to recall something he hadn’t even heard. An exercise in futility. Sonic wondered how long he would have stayed there, struggling, if Amy hadn’t stopped him.

“Oh, it’s nothing,” he replied, quietly accepting the sad truth that Rouge’s final words had died with her. He shook his head, finally able to put on a smile again, and turned to his friend. “Come on, let’s go home, to a planet as cool and blue as me!”

It scared him a bit at just how cheerful he could make himself sound.

But it seemed to work. Amy perked up, ushering the rest of the group out the door, and Sonic took one last look back at the observation deck, and the view of the planet as the ARK orbited it. There was a sense of finality that came with every death, and as Sonic saw the planet below him, he felt something new. The weight of a promise, and one he had always, and always would, carry out.

That world, the planet… he would make sure that everyone on it could live safe and happy lives.

Absentmindedly, he took the remaining ring that rested in his grip and slid it over his right hand.

_ Huh, _ he marvelled.  _ Perfect fit. _

Right before the door behind him could close, Sonic whispered out a final goodbye, using words that came to him in the moment, words that weren’t his own, but words that felt right, regardless.

“Sayonara… Big Sister Rouge.”

The door closed behind him, and a few minutes later, the ARK shut down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See you all in Heroes!
> 
> ~Smash 50


End file.
